


The Monsters Inside Us

by snurgle



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Humor, Cancer, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Leukemia, M/M, Multi, Romance, Shounen-ai, Slow Build, TFiOS, Tragic Romance, Yaoi, ereri, okay, okay?, with a few side ships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-02-20 17:08:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 21
Words: 216,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2436407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snurgle/pseuds/snurgle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rule number one: Never fall in love with someone who has a terminal disease.<br/>This is the only rule that I lived by. Don't fall in love. Don't get attached. Don't drag people down when you know you're falling. Don't make it any harder when your time is already running out.<br/>But that was before I joined the Youth Cancer Support Group. That was before I met Levi Ackerman.<br/>After that, everything changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rule Number One

 

Never fall in love with someone who has a terminal disease.

I know how it sounds. But let’s face it. It’s a good rule to live by. You’ll be saving yourself a lot of wasted time and heartbreak, not to mention the thousands of dollars that would have been lost to medical expenses, and then the therapy bills for cleaning up the colossal mess you made for yourself. Falling in love with someone who’s dying is like keeping a ticking time bomb as a pet. You know it’s going to go off sometime. And when it does, it’s going to destroy everything around it. Then you will be left to fix all the things that were broken because you couldn’t defuse the situation before it was too late.

This is the only rule I’ve ever lived by. At least, it was the only rule I’d been living by for the past four years. Let’s just put it this way. My mom died. Leukemia. And when I was twelve, I was diagnosed with the same thing. Stage two. As soon as my diagnosis was down on paper, I just knew. I knew exactly where my life was headed.

So, yeah. I’d pretty much given up on trying to fall in love. Or anything else, for that matter. I knew my life would be ending soon enough. And I wasn’t about to put someone through all of the bullshit that I was still struggling to get over.

But when it all came down to it, I guess I didn’t really have a choice.

 


	2. Welcome To My Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey. It's me again, presenting another fanfiction for your soul-destroying enjoyment.  
> Before I go any further, I'm probably going to want to issue some TRIGGER WARNINGS.  
> This fic contains ANGST. A LOT OF ANGST. It also contains hospitals, child neglect, teenage drama, major character death and a great deal of sexual tension. And cancer. Can't forget about the cancer.  
> Basically, this entire fanfic is about cancer.  
> So, needless to say, if any of these themes present a problem for you, leave. Simple as that.  
> I wouldn't exactly call this a crossover fic. I am drawing my inspiration pretty heavily from The Fault In Our Stars, but it's not exactly half and half. (not a dead Marco joke. i promise. please don't punch me.) It's still a modern day AU, but it's not exactly Hazel's world.  
> ANYWAY, moving on.  
> Welcome to my fanfiction. I hope it doesn't hurt you too much. Thanks for reading it.  
> Sincerely,  
> that one fanfiction writer known (at one point) as Appelia

 

 

My name is Eren Jaeger. I am seventeen years old, and I’m dying.

Let me be clear about one thing. When I was a kid, I knew well enough what cancer was. I knew it was a disease. It wasn’t always curable, and usually if you had it, you died.

That was just about it.

It wasn’t until later that I learned exactly what caused it. I didn’t know about the genetic mutations, the cells that divide uncontrollably, and the way they build up in places they shouldn’t. I didn’t know about the way that the disease eats a person from the inside out and wears them down until there’s nothing left. How it tortures them for as long as it wants before the end finally comes.

And believe me. Once I finally knew, I wished that I had never had to find out.

 

* * *

 

I was ten years old the first time I saw cancer as it truly was.

There had been something wrong with my mom for a long time before it happened. No one thought it was anything serious. It just seemed like she was getting sick a lot. It wasn’t anything uncommon for an elementary school teacher. Being around a bunch of greasy little kids all day sure seemed to be taking its toll on her. It seemed like at least once a week she’d wake up drowning in her own sweat with a fever raging under her skin. The occasional aches she’d get in her bones didn’t seem all that serious, either.

“It’s because you kids are making me get old, that’s why,” she would say to me and Mikasa, that bright smile of hers plastered onto her face.

It wasn’t until she started losing weight that people started to worry.

But still, my mom never acted sick. Every time she was around my us, she was just her normal self. The most I’d ever caught her giving in to her sickness was once when she passed out on the couch while I was playing Mario Kart in the basement with Mikasa. That was the first time I had realized that something was wrong. Not much later, the realization hit me that something had probably been wrong for a long time. I’d just never noticed. All that time, I hadn’t been able to see past her smile and the bright, cheerful tone she always used when she talked to me. I hadn’t seen how pale she’d been looking lately, or how her clothes were starting to hang off of her like curtains on a window frame. I asked Mikasa about it. She hadn’t noticed either.

That was something I’d always admired about my mom. She never let anything drag her down. She was always a fighter, always putting everyone else before herself. Looking back on it now, maybe if she’d been just a little weaker, just a little more selfish, things could have ended differently.

I overheard the conversation in my parents’ bedroom two days before the call came in.

My mom’s voice was the first one that I heard. “I’m going to the doctor tomorrow.”

“Why now? You could have gone earlier. I’m sure that no one would have given you any flack for it,” my dad replied.

Oh, right. Did you think I didn’t have a father or something? Well, I do. Not that he cared to prove it all that often. I kind of forgot to mention him. But let’s not get into that right now.

“I... Grisha, I found something. Here,” my mom stuttered. “It’s right on my back... There, right in the middle.”

Silence for a second. I heard my dad inhale sharply. A block of ice settled in the pit of my stomach before my mom broke the silence.

“I looked up the symptoms online,” she said, her voice soft. “It all fits. I don’t know when it all started. For all I know, it could have been years since-”

“Karla, how long has this been here?” my dad demanded.

“I told you, I just found it tonight.”

“You just...” My dad trailed off and sighed. I heard fabric rustling on the other side of the cracked door.

“Grisha, what are you doing?”

The click of plastic on plastic. Faint tapping, buttons being pressed. “I’m calling the hospital. We need to get this taken care of. Now.”

“Grisha, I said that I-”

“I know what you said!” he shot back. “You said tomorrow. I’m not going to wait until then. I don’t think you realize exactly how serious this is, Karla.”

“I know perfectly well how serious it is. I just...”

“You what?”

“I just didn’t want anyone to worry.”

My dad sighed again. “Well, what a damn fine job you did of that.”

My mom sighed in defeat. I heard the tapping again, then a muffled, one-sided conversation. For what seemed like forever, there was nothing but my dad’s voice murmuring scattered phrases to no one in particular.

“Yes... Yes, of course... Tomorrow... No, we can’t... Yes, I’m afraid it’s very serious.”

Somewhere between five minutes and five years later, I heard my dad slam the phone back onto the cradle. “There. That settles it. Your appointment is at ten tomorrow morning.”

“Ten?” my mom said. “I have a class to teach. How am I going to-”

“You aren’t, that’s how,” my dad quipped. “You’re not going into work tomorrow. Or any day after that until we figure out exactly what’s going on with you.”

“Grisha, I can’t just skip out of work because of something I read online. I have obligations. I can’t go around taking time off whenever I-”

“Yes, you can! In fact, maybe you should have! I still don’t think you understand. Karla, you could be dying, for christ’s sake!”

His words dug into me, piercing my heart like a syringe. A hand flew up to cover my mouth and stifle the little gasp that had reflexively slipped out. My dad’s voice echoed in my head, over and over, the words sinking in deeper with each repetition.

_Karla, you could be dying. You could be dying. Dying. Dying._

“Grisha!” my mom hissed, her voice a harsh, biting whisper.

My dad sighed. I heard him settle back down on the bed. “I’m sorry, Karly. I- I’m just worried. That’s it.”

“I know, but there’s no need for you to go shouting it to the world like that.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“The kids are right down the hallway. What if one of them heard you?”

Too late. One of them already did.

“They’re going to have to find out sometime.”

“I know,” my mom murmured. “But we don’t know anything for sure yet. I don’t want everyone to start jumping to conclusions.”

I heard the soft rustle of my dad’s fingers brushing through her hair. “What if there are no conclusions to jump to, though? What if-”

“No, Grisha.” I heard my dad’s hand drop and land on the sheets. “Listen to me. I don’t want you to talk that way. I don’t want to hear anyone talking that way until the diagnosis is right in front of me. And until then, we won’t mention it. Not to Eren, not to Mikasa, not anyone. I don’t want people to start worrying before we know for sure that there’s anything to worry about.”

I heard more stifled noises drift through the crack in the door. My mom sighed. Dad probably had her in his arms. “Karla...”

“Do you think the kids are still awake?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you mind checking?”

I heard the soft noises of someone sliding their legs over the side of the bed, then muffled footsteps slowly working their way towards the door.

At that moment, I turned away from the doorway and ran.

 

* * *

 **  
** ****

My mom stayed home from work the next day. She didn’t tell us why. She didn’t need to. I had already heard all that I needed to the night before.

We got the call from the doctor a day later.

I remember the way my mom told us. I was downstairs in the basement with Mikasa. It was a Friday, probably cutting close to 10 pm. We were watching The Final Destination. Or, Mikasa was watching while I clutched a couch cushion to my chest and hid behind it every thirty seconds. A boy was getting dragged down to the bottom of a swimming pool when there was a knock at the door. A second later, it swung open. Light came flooding in and streamed down the stairs.

“Eren? Mikasa? Can you pause that for a second?”

I rolled gratefully toward the center of the couch and sntached up the remote. The scrambled noise of waterlogged screaming was cut short. “What is it?”

“Your mother has something she needs to tell you. Mind coming upstairs for a bit?”

My heart turned to stone and started to sink. For some reason, I could already tell what was coming. No amount of denial could push back the recurring memory of the conversation I’d heard just two days earlier. Mikasa grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the stairs.

A minute later, everyone was sitting in the kitchen. For the longest time, everything was silent. No one wanted to speak. It seemed almost as though we’d been brought upstairs for nothing. Something deep in my soul wished that was the case.

My dad took a breath and broke the silence. “Do you want me to get started, or-”

“No, that’s alright. I... I can do this.” My mom was breathing so heavily that I could hear her from the other side of the table. Her gaze fixed on me for a second, then her eyes flicked towards Mikasa, then back, bouncing back and forth between the two of us.

“So... I’m sure you both remember that I stayed home yesterday,” she began. She paused, waiting and watching Mikasa and me nod in agreement. “Well, I... that was because I had to go to a doctor’s appointment.”

Mikasa twitched. What she was thinking at that moment, I still don’t know.

“And I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

My dad decided to pitch in. “You might have noticed that, for a while now, your mother hasn’t exactly been her usual self. What with the fevers and everything else...”

“Yes. And, well...” My mom trailed off. She slipped one hand nervously into the pocket of her jeans, the other reaching up to press against her pursed lips. It felt like an eternity before she said anything more.

“I was given some tests after the appointment yesterday morning. They had to send me to the hospital to have them done. Um... well, I’ve got a new doctor now. His name is Dr. Hannes. He was the one performing the tests. See... I was told I would get a call when the labs finally came up with something. And... and I got the call from Dr. Hannes today. The results came back this afternoon, and he...” She stopped for a second as if she’d forgotten what she was about to say. She picked up again before I could convince myself that it was true and I wouldn’t have to hear what I already knew was coming.

“He said I have acute myeloid leukemia.” She paused before adding, “It’s a type of cancer.”

The room went completely silent after that. I could hear my blood pulsing in my ears, air rushing in and out of my lungs. Everything was so still. I could feel my heart beating helplessly against my ribs, as if it were trying to escape.

Cancer. That was what she and my dad had been fighting about. My mom had cancer.

I heard Mikasa’s voice next to my ear, broken and squeaking like I had never heard it before. “You... you have cancer?”

My mom nodded. “Yes.”

That deathly silence settled again. The only thing that broke it was the sound of Mikasa’s head hitting the table and the stifled cry that seeped through the neck of her sweater.

 

* * *

 

My mom went to the hospital for her first chemotherapy treatment a week later. When I came to see her that afternoon, her hair looked significantly thinner than it had in the morning. So did the rest of her. Paler, too. And there were faint shadows under her eyes that I had never noticed before. She looked so much sicker there than she had at home that morning. Hospital beds and IV drips have a tendency to do that to people.

Little did I know, that was just the beginning.

Within the span of a few weeks, I watched my mother, the only person who I can truly say I had known and loved for my entire life, fall to pieces. First it was her hair. The long, soft waves with the deep chocolate-brown color that I’d been lucky enough to inherit began falling out in clumps. Before long, it was gone. Her peaches-and-cream complexion quickly turned sickeningly pale. The weight loss that had started months earlier only got worse. Before a month had passed, my mom had been worn down to a shred of her former self.

It hurt, seeing her like that. Seeing this disease slowly eat away at her. But all the while, the light never left her eyes. She never stopped smiling. She never stopped pulling through for Mikasa. For my dad. For me. Maybe for herself, too.

She always stayed positive, even when Dr. Hannes told her that the colony of cells in her spinal cord had spread up into her brain. When her nerves lost feeling every now and again because of the deformed cells clogging up her blood vessels and strangling everything else around them. And when Mikasa and I had to start going to Shiganshina Hospital if we wanted to see her at all. Even on the day that she was given the final number of days she had left. Because as far as I knew, she wasn’t giving up.

And that was what she told us. That was what she told us, right up until the day she died.

And that was it. That was what happened. I wish I could say that she did something heroic, that she was being held like a fragile little doll in death’s clutches and somehow managed to wriggle free. But no. That didn’t happen.

She just stopped breathing.

Two years later, it was my turn. Same symptoms. Same diagnosis. Same disease. Leukemia. The relentless sickness that had killed my mother had somehow made its way to me.

Everything began to fall apart after that.

 

* * *

 

Like I said before, I was diagnosed with leukemia when I was twelve. So, to make things quick, I’d spent the past four years of my life in constant fear that it would be ending soon. At least, that was what it was like at first.

When our mother had been diagnosed, Mikasa had been the first one to cry. When it was my turn to get tossed onto the terminal disease bandwagon, the role of first crier was assigned to me. I don’t know what had upset me so much about it. Maybe it was the memory of my mother. At least, what used to be my mother before her disease had morphed her into something else. Maybe I was scared that the same thing would happen to me. Or maybe I was scared of what it would do to the people around me, everyone in my life that I cared about. Whatever the reason, the second the words were out of Dr. Hannes’s mouth, the realization hit me like the front bumper of a speeding car.

I was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it.

That was the third week in July. For the entire rest of the summer, I was getting sent to the hospital, getting screened for tumors, signing up for studies, having blood tests taken and a billion other things that I’ve either forgotten or blocked out of my memory. They finally settled on giving me regular infusions of the latest magical cancer-killing drug, called Mariatrexate. They said that it contained molecules that would form a barrier over the cancerous cells in my ribs and keep their growth from spreading. Sure enough, the hospital visits finally slowed down by the time I started seventh grade. So the miracle drug was working. Yay, Mariatrexate.

It was around that time that my dad and I started drifting apart.

It wasn’t exactly sudden. He’d been a lot quieter ever since my mom died. He spent most of his time at work, leaving Mikasa and me home alone for most of the day. But he still came home at the same time every night, and he was still willing to talk to us if we talked to him first. Things still had a touch of normalcy to them.

But that was before I was diagnosed.

I didn’t know what his reasons were. I still don’t know. He’d never been very straightforward when it came to talking about things that upset him. The best I could do was guess. Maybe it was because he still hadn’t learned how to cope with what had happened to Mom. Or it could have been because the disease that had killed his wife was now dead-set on doing the same to his only biological child.

I think I might have forgotten to mention that Mikasa was adopted.

Whatever his reasons happened to be, he started spending less and less time around us and more at the lab complex where he worked. He was a microbiologist. He studied infectious diseases and developed medications for some big pharmaceutical company that I can’t remember the name of. He’d racked up a lot of renown for himself in the process, too. Apparently his research has done a lot to contribute to the medical field.

Maybe that was what had him so upset. He was being paid to study diseases and figure out how to fight them, but he couldn’t do a single thing to figure out how to save his wife and son.

So now not only did I have a dead mother, but a father who did just about the bare minimum to keep Mikasa and me alive and mentally stable.

Seventh grade passed without a hitch. Mikasa got into her first relationship, which lasted about two weeks. I got into a fistfight with some arrogant rich kid who made fun of my emotional trauma. My dad kind of stopped giving a shit about anything. Eighth grade went by in a relatively normal manner as well. I stayed in remission. Mikasa joined the school MMA team and earned herself a whole new circle of friends. My dad switched the oncologist slot in our insurance statement over to another doctor a few miles further away from home because he no longer trusted Dr. Hannes. I had my first appointment with my new oncologist, Dr. Erwin Smith, a blonde medical god who Mikasa and I quickly nicknamed Dr. Handsome. Mikasa and I graduated middle school. I managed to stay out of the hospital for the entire summer, not including the appointments that were scheduled every month to make sure I didn’t go into relapse.

Strangely enough, that was what my body decided to do at the start of my freshman year at Shignashina High.

The symptoms that hadn’t reared up in over two years suddenly started coming back to haunt me. In less than 48 hours, I was back in Trost Regional Hospital, lying in an MRI chamber with needles jammed into my arms and Dr. Erwin’s staff doing a CSI-caliber search of my body, trying to confirm whether the cancer in my rib marrow had spread or not. When Dr. Erwin finally figured out the root of the problem, it turned out that my worst fears had come true. My body had built up an immunity to Mariatrexate. The cancer that had been isolated in the marrow of my ribs had spread to the core of nearly every other bone in my body. The miracle drug wasn’t working on me anymore.

After that, I was placed in chemotherapy and had radiation administered for the second time in my life. And for the second time in my life, I was getting torn to pieces by my disease. I was losing weight again, I couldn’t keep food down, my hair was falling out from the drugs and radiation... I was a human disaster. I don’t know what else to say.

Towards the end, Dr. Erwin assigned me a new treatment drug. Rosevelin, they called it. It was supposed to be more powerful version of Mariatrexate. Something that would be harder to form antibodies against and do a little more to keep my cancer from becoming uncontrollable again. Supposedly I would be getting treatments more often and the new medication wouldn’t wear off nearly as fast as Mariatrexate had. I didn’t know whether the promises would hold true or not.

By the time it was all over, I’d been out of school for over a month. It was at that point that my dad took me out of Shiganshina and enrolled me in a homeschooling program. If month-long hospital stays were going to become a regular occurrence, then there was no point in trying to keep me on a regular school schedule. I would never be able to catch up.

Despite the new doses of Rosevelin in my system, I ended up in the hospital for a few days out of January, then again in March. Both times the basic leukemia symptoms had come back and hung over my head until I couldn’t stand them anymore. And both times they ran tests on me while I waited impatiently for my symptoms to go back into remission. It wasn’t anything serious, they said. Just precautions. They wanted to keep the cells controlled. Wanted to make sure that they didn’t start growing or spreading. Most importantly, that they weren’t taking root anywhere else in my body.

Sure enough, that was what happened in the beginning of that summer. That clusterfuck ended up in another extended hospital stay. I wasted almost my entire summer confined to white plaster walls, gray linoleum and fluorescent lighting that year. I would have given anything to get out of there. To see what was going on in the world outside. But no. As long as the cancer was there, I knew it wasn’t possible.

After that was sophomore year. Or at least it would have been, if I were still enrolled in a normal high school. I never realized exactly how much easier it was to keep track of the passage of time when there was a school schedule to adhere to. Mikasa was the only reason why I even knew what season it was. There were another three hospital visits between the scheduled start of the school year and the day Mikasa came home with her last-semester report card. I didn’t know which time that was that I had been turned into a hairless skeleton. I’d stopped bothering to keep count at that point.

So, to sum things up, everything sucked.

That was the state of my life at the beginning of that summer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I haven't upset anyone too much yet. We've only just gotten through the prologue.  
> And it gets a lot worse.  
> I'm sorry. See you next update.


	3. That Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with another sporadic update. Now that I think about it, the first few chapters of this story are probably going to be sporadic. Because I'm lazy and I don't like going back to read things I wrote over three months ago. Also because I'm trying to keep up with two fics at once, and neither of them are finished.
> 
> Sorry.
> 
> Well, up until this point it's been nothing but backstory. We're done with that. I promise.
> 
> Well, almost. But that's something we'll worry about in another update.
> 
> Once more with the trigger warnings: angst, shipping, lethargy, drama, major character death and CANCER. WE CAN NOT FORGET ABOUT THE CANCER.
> 
> And again with the self-promotion: follow asking-appelia on tumblr. Because that's me. My posts on there are almost as scattered as the updates I make on here. You can follow my main blog at lord-ravioli if you don't mind getting spammed with reblogs every day. Most of them are pretty worth seeing, though. Otherwise I wouldn't have reblogged them.
> 
> Now it's time to figure out where the hell I' m actually going with this story. Thanks for sitting through the background crap. Hope you enjoy the rest of it.

 

 

For the record, signing up for the support group wasn’t my idea.

I guess you can say I blame Mikasa for getting me into all the deep shit that I’m in now. After all, I wasn’t the one who came sweeping through the door one summer afternoon toting a flyer that I’d just ripped off a coffee shop bulletin board.

I was up in my room, as usual, with my shades pulled down and my laptop sitting in front of me on my bed, streaming as much Netflix as I could possibly fit into a 24-hour period. Since the past two summers had been nothing but leukemia, leukemia-related misfortunes and other leukemia by-products, I wasn’t really expecting anything from that one. Well, other than another relapse and hospital stay. But at that point in my life, that was something I had sort of started to expect every day.

I almost missed the first warning sign, the slamming of the front door. My headphones had almost completely blocked out the noise. I was lucky enough to hear just the faintest whisper of an exhaustive slam slip through and think to hit pause before the noise of combat boots stamped out their steady rhythm on the hardwood floor of the downstairs hallway. After that came the scattered _thump_ of an overstuffed messenger bag hitting the floor. I took my headphones off just in time to catch Mikasa shouting.

“Eren!” she called from the bottom of the stairs. “Eren, I’m back! You there?”

I sighed and shut the lid of my laptop. “Am I ever not?” I shot back.

Something that sounded like a breathy, half-assed attempt at human speech echoed in the hallway downstairs. A few seconds later, the footsteps in the entryway had moved to the staircase. And they were getting louder.

That was about when my adrenaline kicked in. In a matter of seconds, I’d thrown my shades up and kicked my laptop under the disordered pile of blankets on my bed. I hissed as the afternoon sunlight came flooding into my room, assaulting my eyes with its deathly brightness.

“Hey. I saw that,” a cold, level voice said.

I whirled around, my eyes still squinting against the sunlight. Mikasa was leaning against the doorframe. The look on her face was stuck somewhere between indifference and slight disappointment.

I smiled nervously. “Heh. Hey, Mikasa.”

Mikasa stepped over the threshold of my door, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. The studs on her green khaki vest glinted in the newly revealed sunlight. I was surprised they hadn’t snagged on her scarf. In fact, I was surprised the scarf hadn’t snagged on anything she owned yet, since half of it was covered in studs or zippers or whatever the fuck else made clothing look hardcore and she wore that blasted red scarf every day. She looked at me and narrowed her kohl-lined eyes. “What have you been doing in here all day?”

“Um... Y-yeah, about that...” I stammered, my brain scrambling to find a response. I tried to think back to that morning. What had I been doing all day? Nothing especially significant would come to mind. I woke up. That was just about it.

Mikasa sighed. “Nothing?”

I nodded. No getting around this now.

“Have you even left your room today?”

“Well, I did for a while, but that wasn’t really-”

“You know what? Never mind. I don’t really care.” She took a few steps further into my room, her hands relocated to her hips. She looked around at the minor trainwrecked state that my room always seemed to be in, no matter how often I cleaned up in there. A second later, her eyes landed on me. “You’re still in your pajamas, aren’t you?”

I looked down. Sure enough, there was a rumpled old Black Sabbath shirt and pair of grey plaid boxers hanging off of my just-a-little-emaciated frame.

“Um... yes.”

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

I glanced at the clock sitting on my dresser. It was 3:14 in the afternoon.

_Shit._ ****

“Eren, for the love of-” Mikasa growled under her breath and slapped a hand to her forehead. “Okay. I’m going to walk out. And you’d better be dressed by the time I get back. Got it?”

I nodded. I didn’t think Mikasa would be too cross with me just for wasting nearly eight hours doing the closest thing to nothing that I could do without being six feet under. She’d never gone all-out on me like she’d done to her eighth-grade ex-boyfriend. And I knew she never would. Besides, it wasn’t like wasting days on end like this was anything new, coming from me. But I still wasn’t about to screw around with her. For all I knew, if I didn’t do as I was told she’d come back in, strip me down and redress me herself.

Sometimes I really wished she didn’t care about me so much.

I watched as Mikasa spun on her heel and traipsed out into the hallway. The door of her room swung shut a few seconds later, then I heard the loud, heavy _thud_ of her combat boots flying off and hitting the door of her closet. I immediately ran to my dresser and ripped the drawers open. Within a few seconds, I’d dragged out a fresh tee shirt and pair of cargo shorts and swapped out my pajamas for the clothes I’d be wearing for however many hours remained of that day. ****

Mikasa came back three minutes later. “Impressive,” she said, a smirk tugging at her lips.

I glanced over my shoulder at her. “Yeah. Because nothing wakes you up like a nice panic attack, right?”

“Come into the kitchen,” she said. She walked into the room and grabbed me by the wrist, removing the possibility that there would be any choice in the matter. “There’s something I wanted to show you.”

I turned and let her drag me towards the door. “What is it?”

“You’ll see. Come on.”

I shuffled along behind her, still feeling as though I had just woken up. I couldn’t even remember what time I actually had woken up that morning, only that by then, my dad had already left for work and Mikasa had gone to meet some people for her volunteer position at the library over the summer. When we got to the kitchen, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I started to wonder exactly what it was that Mikasa had wanted me to see.

“Um, Mikasa-”

“Alright, so before we get into this, I just want to explain something,” she said, reaching for a crumpled sheet of bright orange printer paper. I stared at it. What was that?

“I stopped at Beans on the way back from the meeting for that position at the library today. You know Beans, that little coffee shop in the middle of town?”

I stared numbly at her. “Yeah. Sort of.”

“Well, I was there, just hanging around waiting for my order to come in when one of the baristas recognized me. Turned out that she was one of the senior advisors from last year. She took us around the school for orientation. Her name’s Clara. Remember?”

“Vaguely,” I mumbled.

“Anyway, she asked me how you were doing-”

“And what did you tell her?” I cut in.

Mikasa glared at me. “You gonna let me finish first?”

I returned the favor. “Mikasa, seriously. What did you tell her?”

She sighed and flicked a stray hair out of her face. Okay, I’ll admit it. I might have been getting a little defensive. But Mikasa knew that I got that way sometimes. Or all the time. Either way, I was fairly sure that after putting up me for four years, my sister had just stopped giving a shit.

“The truth.”

“Which is...”

“Think of it this way. You know what just happened upstairs?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Take that scenario and stretch it out over a span of about four years.”

I blinked. Mikasa certainly knew how to put shit into perspective.

She straightened up and started over. “Anyway, Clara said that a couple of people from some organization at Trost Regional came in about a week ago and asked to put some ads up on their bulletin board. She said that it would probably help you deal with... you know. Everything.”

I nodded, not entirely sure what I was agreeing with. “Okay. So... what is this about?”

Mikasa smirked and swept the crumpled sheet of paper towards her. She picked it up and shoved it towards me like a gift from an extremely aggressive Santa Claus. “They still had one poster left. There used to be a pull-tabs attached to the bottom with the phone number and everything else, but they’d all been ripped off. The info’s on the poster, though, so I just took the whole thing.”

I backed up a few inches to read the clear, blocky text.

**Suffering from cancer? You don’t have to.**

**Trost Regional Hospital**

**Join YCSG!**

**(Youth Cancer Support Group)**

**June 24th - August 28th**

**In your struggle with cancer, have you ever felt alone?**

**Singled out? Unlucky?**

**Well, believe it or not, there are lots of people who have felt the same.**

**By joining the Trost Regional YCSG, you will become a valued member of a highly effective peer support group of people just like you. Take the chance to talk to other people between the ages of 12 and 18 who have gone through the same struggles as you. People who will understand.**

**Build new friendships. Learn how to cope. And above all, stay strong.**

**You are not alone in your struggle. Our main goal is to prove it to you.**

I found myself staring at the paper, suddenly having lost the ability to blink. My eyes stuck to a single phrase at the top of the page. Support group.

_Support Group._ ****

“So let me get this straight...You want me to go to group therapy?”

Mikasa rolled her eyes, dropping her hands to her sides. “No, Eren, I want you to go to a giant rave party where everyone just happens to have cancer.”

My gaze flickered up from the paper and latched onto her face. “Mikasa, are you fucking serious? I mean, do you actually think I’m that bad? I mean, sure, sometimes you are perfectly justified in hovering over me when I can’t get my shit together, but I really don’t think that-”

“Of course you don’t,” she said, turning away and leaving the paper face-up on the table. “I didn’t think you would. That’s why I signed you up ahead of time.”

I suddenly felt as though I’d fallen face-first into cement. “You what?!”

Mikasa turned around to face me. She seemed just as calm and collected as always. “What? _You_ weren’t going to do it. Someone had to.”

“No,” I spat, shaking my head. “No, no one _had_ to do anything. I’m fine. I don’t need...” I flicked my hand at the paper. “... group therapy or whatever this shit is.” ****

Mikasa’s face didn’t change, but I saw her eyes flare in frustration. “Okay. Let me get one thing straight, Eren,” she snapped, her voice turning stone-cold and factual. “You’ve been acting like an emotionally repressed little pansy for the past four years of your life. At first, that was fine. You’d just been diagnosed. That’s a lot of deep, dark shit to get dumped onto your shoulders all at once. Not to mention that Mom had just died of the exact same thing. So I sort of expected you to take up the hopeless, lethargic, oh-god-what-do-I-do mentality. But you know what’s supposed to happen after that, Eren? You get over it. You accept what your life has turned into and you learn to cope with it.”

“And you think that’s not something I’ve been trying to do?”

Mikasa stared at me, taking on an expression I can only refer to as her are-you-fucking-kidding-me face.

“Look, Mikasa, I’ve given it my best. I tried going to the guidance counselor after Mom died. After I got diagnosed, too. And I kept my grades up while I was still in school. Getting homeschooled wasn’t my idea. And it’s not like it was something I wanted to do. I just couldn’t keep up with all the time I was spending in the hospital-”

“And that’s why you should go,” Mikasa finished for me as if that were actually what I was going to say. Her face softened again. She stopped leaning against the counter and took a step towards me. “I know that things have been hard for you. And trust me. They’ve been hard for me, too. It wasn’t just your mom who died. And it sure as hell wasn’t your brother who’d been given the closest thing to a death sentence that doesn’t involve going to court.”

My eyes widened. Leave it to Mikasa to make you realize exactly how much of a selfish asshole you really are.

“And let’s face it,” she went on. “You need to make some friends somewhere.”

My brain stuttered. _Did I hear that right?_ “A-are you telling me that I have no friends?”

“Am I the one who spends half his life in the house and the other half in the hospital?”

I fixed her with a deadened stare and pressed my lips into a taut, frustrated line. “Okay, fine. Maybe I do need to get some friends. Maybe.”

Her face brightened up again. She leaned forward, flattening out the flyer on the table under her hands. “So are you agreeing to this, or am I going to have to drug you and bring you in the trunk of dad’s car?”

I sighed in defeat. “You already signed me on, so I’m just going to take a wild guess and say neither isn’t an option.”

Mikasa straightened up and smiled. “So the answer is yes, then.” She spun around and walked out of the kitchen.“Oh, and the first meeting is on the tewnty-fourth,” she called over her shoulder.

Well. That told me what I would be doing next Tuesday.

 

* * *

  
****

On June twenty-fourth at approximately 2:56 PM, I climbed out of my dad’s car and planted my feet on the pavement of the Trost Regional Hospital parking lot. Mikasa spilled out of the passenger seat, the support group flyer sloppily folded up and crammed into her messenger bag. She said a quick goodbye to our dad, promising him that yes, it was an hour exactly, and he wouldn’t have to wait around for us too long before we got out.

I could not believe I had agreed to this.

Mikasa rounded the front bumper of the car and stood in front of me, digging around her bag for the flyer. I slammed the back left door shut as she unearthed the crumpled piece of paper from the jumbled mess inside. She tugged it out of its fragile origami folds.

“Alright. The flyer said conference room 4A, which is on the... first floor.”

I still could not believe I had agreed to this.

Dad backed out of his parking space and rolled back out onto the road, headed back towards his microbiology lab to do whatever infectious disease research that wouldn’t help me in the least that he’d been doing lately. Mikasa and I started across the parking lot, drawing closer to the towering structure that I’d seen far too many times in my life. I don’t think anything would have made me happier than seeing it burn to the ground. I spent enough time in the hospital as it was. I was sick of this place. If I had to start going twice a week like the flyer commanded, I would go insane.

In no conceivable way could I believe that I had... fuck it. You get the point. ****

I kept up with the fast clip of Mikasa’s boots as we walked through the huge glass-paneled automatic doors at the main entrance. She marched straight up to the front desk, leaving me straggling behind. Clearly, someone was a lot more eager than someone else.

“Hi,” she said cordially to the receptionist. “Me and my brother are here for the cancer support group. How do we get to conference room 4A?”

“4A?” the receptionist echoed, looking up from her computer screen. “That’s just down the hall to your left, then a right at the elevators. It’s a straight shot through radiology from there.”

“Thanks,” Mikasa said with a nod. She spun around, taking me by the elbow just as I caught up with her. She reassuringly squeezed the barely-there flesh of my arm and tugged me towards the appointed hallway. I sighed. No turning back now. I was going to do this group therapy thing, whether I liked it or not.

Neither of us spoke as Mikasa led me through the all-too-familiar hospital corridors towards whatever waited for me at the end. Finally, after dodging wheelchairs, laundry carts and rolling IV dispensers, we found ourselves in a relatively quiet hallway lined with fake oakwood doors. I glanced at the numbers beside each. 1A. 2A. 3A.

Conference room 4A. Mikasa grabbed the handle and pushed the door open.

I stepped into the room, my eyes darting in a million different directions at once. There wasn’t much inside. Just a lot of cheap folding chairs, a projection screen on one wall that had been rolled up into its container, and a long table that had been pushed off to the side. The chairs had been arranged in a circle, leaving a big empty space in the middle of the room. And scattered all around were...

Kids. Just a surprising number of kids. All of them were around my age.

I don’t know what I had been expecting.

I took another step and made a beeline for an empty chair in the corner of the room. The area around it looked relatively empty. Maybe that would send enough of a message to the others that I was being held here against my will and I would be leaving once all this bullshit was over and done with.

I could only make it halfway across the room before I felt a huge, muscular hand clamp over my shoulder.

“Hey!”

I whirled around, ready to snap at the stranger to leave me alone, and nearly had a heart attack the second I laid eyes on the person who had dared to violate my personal space. Standing before me was probably the biggest, scariest guy that I had ever met. He must have been over six feet tall and had more muscle on him than I could ever hope to see in my life. I had to step back to get a good look at his face. He had a huge, angular nose, narrow brown eyes and a smile that was so bright it kind of pissed me off. His hair was blonde and crew-cut close to his scalp. Either that or he’d recently started growing it back in.

“U-Um, hi,” I stammered. God, he was so friendly it was terrifying. “I-I’m Eren.”

“Reiner,” he said, offering a hand. I hesitated before taking it only to get my bones crushed by an aggressively warm handshake. “Always nice seeing a new face in the crowd.”

I let out a nervous laugh. “Y-yeah, I guess so.”

I made a break for the empty chair the second he let me go.

I crash landed on the chair, my hand still numb from that stupid handshake. I made a mental note to stay away from Reiner unless I wanted to get pulverized. My eyes did a sweep of the room, searching for Mikasa. She was standing on the other side of the room, talking to some girl in lavender nurse scrubs with a messy brown ponytail and a pair of thick, nerdy-looking glasses. My sister glanced over her shoulder at me and shot me a triumphant smirk.

_Help me,_ I mouthed to her. ****

Mikasa turned back to her new buddy and made some quick comment that made glasses break out in smiles and let out a loud, pitchy laugh. Then she turned, walked towards me and collapsed into the chair beside mine.

“So,” she said. “Who was that blonde guy who grabbed you by the door?”

“That was...” I searched my memory for his name. “Fuck. I can’t remember.”

Mikasa smirked again. “Awwww. He’s making friends already.” She dramatically wiped a few nonexistent tears from her face and placed a hand over her heart. “I’m so proud.”

I folded my arms and sighed. “Shut up, Mikasa.”

While I avoided looking at Mikasa, just in case she was still smirking like an idiot, my eyes started wandering around the room. There was a surprising number of kids. Before I showed up, I hadn’t had the slightest idea of what it was that I was getting myself into. I didn’t think Mikasa did, either. I was thinking that maybe it would be a bunch of traumatized basket cases all packed into a single room. Either that or a flock of wilting half-corpses sitting in wheelchairs and dragging around oxygen tanks. But now that I was here, the closest thing that I could compare this to was probably a classroom after a teacher leaves to make copies or something. Everyone was wandering around, seeming just a little confused, as if they weren’t used to being left alone in a room without any adult supervision. Some of them were sitting, some of them standing, a couple of them were even talking as if they were already best friends. Most of them probably were.

“Alright, people, we’re starting in a few minutes! Everybody take a seat!”

My head swiveled around to find the source of the voice. It was glasses girl. I stared at her for a second. She seemed a little enthusiastic for someone who was running a support group for dying kids. It made me wonder whether or not she actually knew what kind of organization she was running here.

My attention was distracted long enough to miss the tiny blonde chick dropping into the chair on the other side of me.

I looked over my shoulder at the sound of denim shorts hitting woven nylon. A girl had magically appeared in the chair next to mine, her head down and her over-long bangs hanging dismally over her face, her body slumped over underneath a grey sweatshirt that must have been at least three sizes too big for her. She glanced over at me for a split second, as if she could feel my eyes on her and the sensation pissed her off. Something told me she wanted to be here just about as much as I did.

I gave her a casual nod. “Hey,” I said.

The second the word was out of my mouth, the girl dropped her gaze, slipped a cell phone out of her sweatshirt pocket and started tapping at the screen.

I sighed, rolling my eyes and tilting my head back. “Okay, that’s fine,” I mumbled. “Whip out your phone and start texting the second someone tries to talk to you. That’s really cool.”

I heard a disgruntled sigh to my left, then more furious tapping. I turned around to see the girl holding her phone up, the screen centered in the palm of her hand and inches away from my face. It was opened to a note-writing app, and a block of text was stamped across the fake yellow note paper on the screen.

**I’m not texting. I can’t speak, you insensitive prick.** ****

My eyes flicked back and forth between the screen and her face. Her hooded blue eyes were glaring angry daggers into mine. It was only then that I noticed the tiny white scar at the base of her throat. As soon as I did, I felt the color drain from my face and my insides suddenly seemed to have stopped existing. I took a shaky, nervous breath.

“Oh.”

Before that situation could become even more awkward than it already was, the door to the conference room slammed shut. My spine snapped bolt upright and my head spun in the direction of the noise. I hadn’t even realized the door had been open in the first place.

“Quiet down, people! We’re getting started!”

The girl with the glasses was shouting again. I let slip another exasperated sigh and recentered myself in my chair. Everybody else had taken up a spot in the circle. There was only one chair left unoccupied. Glasses quickly claimed it for herself.

“Okay,” she said, her voice sounding just as irritatingly bright as the smile on her face. She was holding a little plastic clipboard now and tapping against it with a pen. “Well, first things first, I want to thank everybody for coming. Welcome to the fourth operational year of the Youth Cancer Support Group! For all our new members, which I think includes most of you, welcome to the group, and for everyone coming back from last year, welcome back! It’s great to see all of you again!” She flashed a smile at two older-looking guys sitting together at one end of the chair circle. The gargantuan blonde guy was one of them. I should have guessed.

“Before we start, I just want to tell all of you new recruits a little bit about the Youth Cancer Support Group, just in case you didn’t know what you were getting into when you signed up for this.”

I certainly didn’t. Well, isn’t that just fan-fucking-tastic.

“The Trost Regional YCSG is an independently run organization that is funded by the hospital and that’s pretty much all they have to do with it. The support group was started four years ago by a group of oncology nurses who noticed that a few of their patients needed a little more help coping with their disease than they were getting. We started off pretty small, and each year, the group has gotten a few more members. This year we’ve worked our way up to...” She stopped for a second to glance at the clipboard. “... twelve members. Wow. That’s more than I thought.” She smiled again, crossing her legs and tapping the clipboard on her knees.

“Now, since this is our first session of the summer, we should probably start things out with an introduction. We’re just going to start things off by going around the entire circle and telling everybody else a little bit about ourselves. And remember guys, we don’t do passes here. This is a support group, so we’re supposed to be _supporting_ each other. And I don’t think that your name should be something that you’d be uncomfortable sharing with the group. There’s no getting out of this, so please don’t try.” Her enthusiasm dropped for the briefest of seconds before bubbling right back up to the surface. “I’ll go ahead and start things off.” She stood up, placing her clipboard gingerly on the chair. “Hi, everyone. I’m Hanji Zoe.” ****

I wasn’t sure if the rest of the group was supposed to respond with a deadpan _“Hi, Hanji”_ or not.

“I’m twenty-one years old, and I work as an LPN at Trost Regional. I am also a student in Sina State University during the year, and I’m working towards my bachelor’s and full RN certification. I’ve been assisting in oncology for a year, I’ve been part of the YCSG since my first day, and I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon.” She finished with another half-witted smile before sitting down and nodding to her right.

The circuit of public embarrassment continued on its course to a nervous-looking guy sitting directly next to Hanji. With an unsteady motion, he straightened his legs out and stood up to his full height. I nearly snapped my neck trying to keep track of his face. He was even taller than blondie, towering over him by maybe three or four inches. His dark brown hair looked uncomfortably damp. So did his clothes. I shuddered. Probably a nervous sweater.

“Um... hi,” he started, offering the group a forced smile. “My name’s Bertolt. Bertolt Hoover.” He paused, glancing over his shoulder at the massive blonde guy who had been sitting next to him. He nodded as if to say _go on_. Bertolt looked back up and continued. “Okay. I... Well, I’m eighteen years old, and I have osteosarcoma. I was diagnosed when I was fourteen, and I’ve been in remission for almost two years now. Let’s see, what else...” He picked nervously at the edge of his pocket. “I’ve been part of the YCSG for the past three years, and it’s been a really great experience. I met a lot of really great friends through it, and... That’s just about it, I think.” He collapsed back into his chair the second his speech was over. ****

“Nice job, Bert. Way better than last year,” someone in the circle said.

The massive blonde guy who’d grabbed me by the door shook his head at the commentator and sighed before swaggering to his feet. “Hey,” he said, starting things out with a bang. “For any of you who haven’t met me yet, the name’s Reiner Braun. I’m seventeen, and I’ve been in the YCSG ever since the first meeting. Back when I was in eighth grade, I was diagnosed with melanoma, which looks something like this.” He pulled back the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a huge discolored patch of skin on his shoulder.

I immediately wanted to pour bleach in my eyes.

It was dark, drying-blood red in some spots, a peeling-scab brown color in others, with a vague similarity to molting reptile scales. His skin was making mine crawl. While I resisted the urge to vomit, a few murmurs of discontent were emitted from the circle. Reiner probably could have done without giving us that lovely example of his skin deformity.

Thankfully, he tugged his sleeve back down a second later. “So, as you can see, it’s not exactly pretty. But being in the support group has really helped me a lot. It’s helped me get over the insecurity that my disease had caused, and I’ve also made a lot of friends through it. It’s been an amazing three years so far, and I hope it’ll do just as much for you as it did for me.” He sat back down with a smile.

“I told you not to show them the skin thing!” the same voice from before shouted.

“Hey, can you shut your mouth until it’s your turn?” someone else snapped.

“No.”

The girl next to Reiner ignored the side commentary and stood up. I took in her deep tan, even deeper freckles, and dark brown hair, the shortness and choppiness of which seemed to be a choice rather than the inevitable result of cancer treatment. “My name’s Ymir,” she deadpanned, not even bothering to give the group a greeting as the others had done. No last name, either. “I’m seventeen, and my cancer is rhabdomyosarcomas. If you don’t know what that is,then it’s basically like what Bertolt has, only it affects soft tissues instead of bone. I was diagnosed two years ago, and I’ve never gone into total remission. This is my first year in the support group, and...” She shrugged. “That’s it.” She sat down before that anonymous commentator could say a word.

The next girl seemed like a fairy in comparison to Ymir. She had to be the tiniest person I had ever seen, with big, expressive blue eyes and a peachy complexion that was dangerously close to my mom’s. Her golden-blonde hair looked softer than a baby’s, falling over her shoulders in wispy, uneven layers. “Hi, everyone,” she said. Or sang. It could have been either one, with a voice like hers. “My name is Krista Lenz. I’m seventeen years old, and, well... I don’t actually have cancer. But before anyone says anything, I just want to explain something. I might not have cancer myself, but my mother did. She died when I was just a baby, so I grew up with my grandparents, and...” She trailed off, her wide blue eyes staring off into the distance. She shook her head a second later, letting out a breath I hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “... and you can ask me about that later if you’re interested.” She blinked before forcing a smile onto her pretty face again. “Anyway, I’ve been a part of the support group for two years, everything’s been fantastic so far, and that’s all there really is to say.” She settled back into her chair. The entire circle had its eyes glued to her, mine included. That had to be the most tragic backstory reveal I would be hearing today.

“Yeah, Krissy!” the commentator from before blurted out. Okay, now that was starting to piss me off.

My vision snapped in the direction of the voice. It was coming from the kid in the chair right next to Krista. Or at least he used to be in the chair. Now he was standing up, looking all too eager to humiliate himself. The first thing I noticed about him was that he was completely bald. Well, mostly. There was a thin layer of fluff covering his scalp that hinted at his hair maybe being black, but that was it. His face was drawn up in a huge, stonery smile. It made me wonder if he’d ever even actually been stoned in his life.

“Hey, asshole, can it with the commentary and get on with the introduction,” someone hissed.

“Alright, alright,” he said, dropping the stoner grin. “Hi, everybody. My name’s Connie Springer, and, unlike almost everybody else who’s been talking so far, I still don’t have my license. I’m sixteen years old, I have Ewing’s sarcoma,which I was diagnosed with two years ago. I was put on medication and went into remission pretty quickly, but, as you can see, it’s got a few side effects.” He suppressed a laugh, brushing a hand over his scalp fluff.

Well, that explained the hair thing.

“This is my second year in the support group, and for all the newbies, I’m just going to put this out there. It doesn’t suck as much as you think it will. It’s actually pretty cool. And you get a lot out of it that you don’t think you will. But you do. Trust me.” ****

With that, Connie dropped back into his chair and tapped the shoulder of the girl beside him. She glanced over her shoulder at him, looking uneasy. He flashed her another of his toasted grins, and she sighed and stood up. She looked relatively healthy for someone in this kind of support group. Her skin wasn’t pale or shadowy like some of the others’, and her cherrywood-brown hair was still pretty long, by cancer patient standards.

The only problem with her was that she was an absolute twig.

Seriously. It was like seeing a stick figure that someone had decided to give clothing and a face. I was surprised that this girl could stand without her legs snapping underneath her.

“Hello. My name is Sasha Braus,” she said. “I’m sixteen, going to be seventeen in a month. This is my first year with the YCSG. I know Connie from school, and he’s the one who got me into it. My disease is colon cancer, which wound up giving me a malabsorption disorder after getting about a third of my digestive system removed, so please don’t ask me how I stay so skinny. It’s not exactly a choice.” She paused for a second, as if this had all been scripted and she had forgotten her lines. “Um... I’ve been in remission for about a year after the surgeries and everything. I was diagnosed in seventh grade, and it was a really big shock to my entire family. The new lifestyle and everything has taken a lot of getting used to, and... and I’m glad that Connie got me into this support group, because I _really_ needed it.” She took a deep, shaky breath, then glanced over her shoulder at the guy sitting next to her. He offered up a small, reassuring smile and gave her a subtle thumbs-up. Sasha dropped back into her seat without a second to spare. The next victim stood up.

“Hi. I’m pretty sure most of you already know me. My name’s Marco Bodt.” ****

Marco immediately struck me as the kind of person it would be impossible to hate.

I don’t know what it was about him that was just so... inviting. His dark hair looked soft and springy, as if it hadn’t been too long since it had grown in. He was pretty tall, had a cheerful collection of freckles sprinkled across his face, and could probably have passed for a healthy teenage guy to some random stranger off the street. But not to someone who knew the signs of a cancer sufferer all too well. The longer I stared, the more I noticed that his skin was just a little too pale, that there were faint shadows under his eyes, that his clothes seemed to hang off of him just a little too loosely. But for what it was worth, he hid his symptoms well.

“I’m seventeen years old,” he continued, “and I’ve been a part of the support group ever since it first started. I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when I was eleven. I was already in stage IIB, so things were pretty bad to begin with, and I’ve been in and out of remission since then. As of now, it’s been almost four months since my last relapse, and I don’t plan on going back for a while if I can help it. As for things to say about the support group... well, I guess it’s up to you guys to decide what to think.” He sat back down on his chair, a satisfied glow just behind the freckled surface of his face. He cast a sideways glance at the guy next to him, as if he were expecting something. The guy didn’t move. Marco sighed. “Jean, aren’t you going to say something?”

“What? Me? Dude, no. This is for the support group.” I recognized his voice as the one that had snapped at Connie a few introductions ago.

“But you’re _in_ the support group.”

“Not really. I just show up at the meetings. I don’t have-” ****

“Tell them your name, at least.”

With an exaggerated sigh, the guy stood up. He was relatively tall, lanky and skinny in a way that seemed a lot more natural than the way Sasha or Marco or anybody else in the room was. Not that it made him any prettier. His vaguely horse-like face took care of that.

“Okay, if you didn’t hear Marco bitching at me before, my name’s Jean. Jean Kirschtein.” Even the sound of his voice pissed me off. And his name. Jean. Jsheaahhn. His parents must have thought he would grow up to be fancy or something.

“I don’t have cancer. Honestly, I’m just here for moral support. I’ve been friends with Marco since second grade, and when he started going to the support group meetings, I started going too. That’s the only reason I’m here, really.” He sat back down without another word.

Jean Kirschtein was clearly the biggest man-bitch I would ever meet.

“Armin. Hey, Armin, you’re up next.”

The sound of Hanji’s voice broke through the sound barrier of my personal bubble. I realized that the room had been quiet for almost a whole minute. I glanced around the circle, trying to figure out exactly where it was that we left off.

“What? Me? Oh, sorry...”

My gaze settled on a tiny, frail-looking kid sitting in the chair next to Jean. I stared at him for a while, not sure what to make of... well, I wasn’t really sure if it was a him or not. There seemed to be nothing about him or her that struck me as exceptionally gender-related either way. He/she/it had wide, sky-blue eyes peeking shyly out from under a thick layer of dirty blonde skater hair that reminded me vaguely of a coconut shell. The kid was probably the scrawniest excuse for a human that I have ever seen, with a body that probably could have belonged to either a really skinny guy or a really underdeveloped girl, making the whole gender situation even more confusing.

“Hi. I’m Armin. Arlert. I’m... I’m Armin Arlert,” he stuttered. At least I thought so. The voice was a little too low to be a girl. Pretty squeaky by guy standards, though.

“I’m sixteen years old, and my cancer is non-Hodgkins lymphoma. I was diagnosed when I was six, and I’ve had it pretty much all my life. Apparently lymphoma is a really common thing in my family. We’ve never been able to figure out if there’s a genetic link or not, but lot of my relatives were diagnosed with the same thing, but a lot later than I was, and, well... most of them aren’t around anymore. I guess I was lucky that they caught mine so early on.” He jammed his hands into his cargo short pockets and took a breath before continuing. “Other than all that, I guess I have to say I’ve been doing pretty well. I’ve been in remission for almost six years now, and my last cancer-related hospital visit was more than a year ago, which is actually a record for me. So I guess I’m okay as far as all that is concerned. I haven’t been declared cancer-free or anything yet, but... Things are looking up, I think.” He dropped back into his chair, red-faced and breathless.

I could have sworn I heard the voiceless girl next to me whisper _Why is he even here?_ ****

She was the next to stand up. The circle waited for her to speak up and introduce herself. Instead, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and started poking at the screen again. She crossed over to Reiner and tapped on his scaly, disease-ridden shoulder.

“Hm?” he mumbled, looking up at her. She pushed her phone shyly towards him. “Me? Oh. Okay.” He took the phone in his huge, brawny hands and began reading from the screen.

“My name is Annie Leonhart,” he read out loud. He glanced over at the little blonde. “Leonhart? That’s a cool name.” He went back to reading. “I am seventeen years old. This is my first year with the support group. Well, welcome to the club, Annie.” He kept going back and forth between her and the introduction she’d given him. “I was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer when I was thirteen. I contracted it from secondhand smoke from my grandparents, who I spent a lot of my childhood with. Two years ago I had to have my vocal cords surgically removed because of a tumor that could have possibly gone malignant, which is why I can no longer speak.” Reiner stopped and stared at the palm-sized screen in front of him. He switched his focus to Annie again, sympathy in his eyes. “Wow. I- I’m so sorry to hear that.” His face taking on a slight frown, he turned back to her cell phone only to see that there wasn’t any script left to read. He handed Annie’s cell phone back, and the both of them sat down, one looking significantly more stunned than the other. I felt an elbow dig into my ribs.

“Hey, Eren,” Mikasa whispered to me. “You’re up next.”

“Huh? What- oh.” I looked around at the rest of the support group. Everyone’s eyes were on me. My pulse thundering in my ears, I took a deep breath and forced myself to stand.

“H-hi, my name is Eren Jaeger,” I began. My face was heating up more than a bad sunburn. “I’m sixteen years old. This is my first year in the support group, so I don’t really have anything to say about it just yet.” I stopped for a second, my brain scrabbling for more details. What had everyone else used? What came next? Oh, right. Diagnosis. Cancer stuff. “I have acute myelogenous leukemia, which was diagnosed when I was twelve. I’ve been in and out of the hospital in the past few years, but I’ve been in remission for just a little over three months. And...” I trailed off, trying to find something else to say. My mom. There was always my mom. She was certainly a conversation starter. Walk into a room, bring her up and suddenly _Hey! Not only is this kid dying, but he’s also half an orphan!_

I took another deep breath and decided against it. I didn’t care how much of a plot hole it would leave. I didn’t want these people to start feeling sorry for me. I just wanted to get this over with and leave. ****

“And that’s all there is to it, really,” I deadpanned. I collapsed back into my chair like a faulty Jenga tower. Mikasa stood up without a moment’s hesitation.

“Hi, everyone, my name is Mikasa Ackerman. I’m Eren’s sister. Adopted, but I still consider myself his sister. I don’t have cancer, so I guess that means I’m here for moral support. I’ve tried to be there for Eren, but we both agreed that he needed to get help from a few people other than me. You see, the funny thing about Eren’s cancer is that it was the same kind that we lost our mother to when we were ten.”

My eyes widened and my mouth fell open. The entire support group was staring at Mikasa. Except for the few of them who were staring at me instead.

Well, that was one way to drop a bombshell.

“So it’s been a rough road so far, but we’ve been doing our best to pull through. And that’s what we plan to do for as long as we can.”

Leaving it at that, she sat back down. I immediately turned to her and stared, my eyes practically screaming _WHAT THE FUCK, MIKASA?!_

She glanced at me, responding with a _sorry, but hey, they had to find out somehow_ face. ****

We’d almost made it completely around the circle of social suicide. Hanji was two chairs away from me. Mikasa was blocking my view of whoever it was that had been sitting in the third chair this entire time, and I hadn’t felt like putting up the effort of leaning over to see who it was. They didn’t make any move to stand up. Maybe there was no one sitting there at all.

I considered the possibility for a while. Then I stopped when Hanji turned to the silent spot between her and Mikasa and said, “Well? You’re the last one.”

I heard a heavy sigh come drifting up from the chair. Then the stranger sitting in it stood up for all the support group to see.

I felt my heart stop the second I saw him.

It was a guy. I could have sworn that I’d seen him somewhere before. I recognized the dispassionate, almost bored expression on his face, the neat undercut of straight, jet-black hair, the sharp gray eyes that seemed to pierce through my skin and into my soul. He was short, really short, but still struck me as someone who could take down a man twice his size. It was probably his arms. They were sticking out of the short sleeves of his mint-green scrubs, just as toned and muscular as the last time I’d seen them.

He started up his introduction the same way everyone else had. “Hello. My name is...”

I knew what he was going to say before the words were even out of his mouth.

“Levi Ackerman.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT?  
> WHAT A SURPRISE.  
> NO ONE WAS EXPECTING THAT.  
> THIS DEFINITELY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT I HAD HIS NAME IN THE FREAKING TAGS.  
> NOT AT ALL.  
> So... that happened.  
> See you next update.


	4. That Other Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back again.  
> This story is going a lot more slowly than I thought it would. And the backstory stuff ended up a lot longer than I thought it would be. But I'm still going with this. Now that the story line has finally kicked in, maybe people will read it.  
> But guess what.  
> IT'S TIME FOR MORE BACKSTORY CRAP.  
> See? I warned everyone that it was going to happen in the last chapter. And here it is.  
> YES, I know it's boring and frustrating and this is really dragging everything out as much as it can possibly be dragged out. But it's important. i promise. You'll see why once things turn back to the present. Or at least I hope you will.  
> Not even gonna bother with the tumblr plugs this time around. But the story does have a tag now. I'm tracking "fic:tmiu" and "fic:tmi" on tumblr now. That's all the letters and no spaces, if you're like me and have a hard time telling the difference between where there is and isn't a space. Tagging "fic:the monsters inside us" works too.  
> Let's go ahead and get this over with.

 

 

That, obviously, was not the first time I had seen Levi.

It happened the summer after what would have been my freshman year at Shiganshina High.

I’d started having symptoms the week after Mikasa got out for summer vacation. It wasn’t anything serious, at first. I just hadn’t been as hungry as I normally was. I wasn’t about to go telling my dad about it anytime soon. Not until I was sure there was actually something wrong, anyway. Knowing him, the second I said that something was off, he’d throw me into the backseat of the car and start off for the hospital. It seemed like the only time he ever bothered to prove he was still my legal guardian was when I was sick. I can’t say I blamed him. Mom never let anyone take care of her whenever she got sick. And my dad was never one to force his care on her when she wouldn’t accept it. We all know exactly how that turned out. I guess it was just a mistake he never wanted to make again.

The first week of July was the same week that I started throwing up. I tried to cover it up the first few times. Then there was the night that I ended up getting stuck at the dinner table while mediating (re: trying and failing to mediate) a debate between Mikasa and my dad over why she couldn’t get a summer job like apparently all of her friends were. About three minutes in, my dinner suddenly felt like making a reappearance. I tried to fight it off, to stay and keep playing back-and-forth devil’s advocate for my dad and sister, but my stomach wasn’t having it. It didn’t take long for the nausea to turn uncontrollable. I didn’t have time to casually slip away like I had before. I just got up, bolted to the bathroom and purged my guts out.

Naturally, within minutes of witnessing my vomit, my dad called Dr. Erwin and told me to get in the car. I had a scheduled appointment before sundown.

For what I think was the fifth time that year, my dad and Mikasa escorted me to the cancer center of Trost Regional Hospital. My appointment with Dr. Erwin went pretty much the same way as all the others before it had. He gave me a quick once-over, poked at a few pressure points for a bit, then felt my stomach up. He said that my spleen felt inflamed or something along those lines and that he’d get a PET scan scheduled for that Thursday. He sent me home after that. So maybe things weren’t nearly as bad as my dad feared they were.

Of course, by Thursday things had only gotten worse. I hadn’t been able to keep anything down since the night of spontaneous vomit. I wound up being able to eat only tiny amounts of food every hour or so. Anything more than that just wound up getting regurgitated. Then there was the strange feeling I would occasionally get in the right side of my ribcage, like a rock sitting inside me where one of my organs should have been. By the time the scan results came back, I already knew what was wrong. The pictures on the disc only confirmed it.

A few stray leukemic cells had gotten into my bloodstream, and they had collected in my liver and decided to take root. I was now the proud owner of a malignant liver tumor.

By Friday, I was checked in for yet another stay at Trost Regional Hospital.

 

* * *

 

That first night was an absolute hell.

I hadn’t been expecting another extended hospital stay that summer. But at the same time, I sort of had. That was one of the things I hated most about my disease. No one ever knew what it was going to do next. One month it would be in total remission, then the next it would relapse and start ravaging my body like some kind of zombie scourge. I was never exactly able to plan out when I would be stuck at Trost Regional next, but hospital stays had turned into just another part of my normal life.

That sure as hell didn’t mean I liked them, though.

I hardly slept at all the first night. I never slept well in hospitals. Everything always seemed too cold, too clean, so meticulous and orderly that if I twitched in my sleep I would knock something over or rip an IV out or make some other life-threatening mistake. Then there was the constant noise of the monitors that were stuck to my chest. And the dull ache from the saline drip they’d plugged into my arm to combat the dehydration I’d developed from the constant vomiting. And the irritating smell of antibacterial cleaner that always seemed to be hanging in the air.

Not exactly what you’d call a prime sleeping environment.

I spent most of the night lying awake and staring at the ceiling. I was lucky enough to get placed in a room that was only half-occupied. The curtain that hung at the halfway point on the ceiling stayed drawn back, and the bed next to mine stayed empty. At least one thing had gone right for me in this insurmountable shitstorm. I might have been caged up in a hospital with a diseased liver, but I still didn’t have to live with nothing but a curtain separating me from a total stranger who could have been watching me sleep for all I knew. Visiting hours had ended at ten, and both Mikasa and my dad had gone home. Despite the fact that I usually don’t care all that much about being alone, I was lonely. And on the rare occasions that I actually do get lonely, I have a hard time getting any sleep.

Needless to say, the sensation of white fluorescent lights casting their agonizing glow on my eyelids was not pleasant.

I pried my eyes open, squinting against the blinding light. A dull jolt of panic shot through my mind. For just a second, I’d forgotten where I was. Then that dull, heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach reminded me. Leukemia. Tumor. Hospital.

 _Right._ I let out a discontented groan and reached up to rub at my eyes.

“Hey. Sorry about that. I sort of needed those on to readjust you.” ****

I blinked, trying to force my eyes to open. The light still burned, but it was just a little more tolerable now. I wriggled around under the thin, papery sheets and tried to make myself sit up against the pillows. I was already halfway up before my eyes decided they could handle the sudden light adjustment.

The mechanized popping sound of the flow control on my IV drip broke the relative silence in the room. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and turned towards the collection of machines at the side of my bed. “Wha? Who’s...”

I fell silent in mid-sentence. Standing by the IV dispenser, pressing commands into the little plastic button panel and dressed in spotless mint-green scrubs, was... someone.

I didn’t know who, or what. He was just someone.

I blinked. I didn’t know what he was doing there. I hadn’t ever seen him around the hospital before. He seemed pretty young, maybe only a few years older than myself.

He pressed one last button and the IV dispenser chimed in response. “Okay. That’s done...” He threw a quick glance at the other machinery and turned. Suddenly his eyes were on me.

Holy shit. Grey. I had never seen anything so grey in my entire life.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

I took a deep breath and coughed up a single sentence. “Who are you?”

He blinked, dulling the feeling of razor wire spearing through my flesh where his eyes made contact with mine. “Oh, right,” he said. “You were passed out when I came in to check on you earlier.”

“I was asleep?” I croaked. It certainly didn’t feel like it.

The guy let out a soft, breathy noise that could have been a laugh, but I wasn’t sure. “Asleep doesn’t even cut it. Your monitors were the only reason why people knew you weren’t dead.”

I rubbed at my eyes again. “What time is it?”

“A little after eight,” he responded. “There’s a digital clock above the TV in the corner, if you’d bothered looking.”

I looked. He was right. For some reason I suddenly felt stupid. “How long was I out?”

“Probably a few hours. Don’t worry. Passing out for an extended period of time is completely normal.”

“What?” I mumbled.

“You heard me,” he replied. “There’s even a name for it. It’s called sleep.”

I sighed heavily and turned back to the stranger by my bed. “Ha. You’re hilarious.”

He didn’t respond. He just glanced at my patient file hanging up on the wall. “Looks like everything’s in order here,” he said matter-of-factly. “See you in an hour.”

“Wait.”

The guy froze, his fingertips just barely brushing the door handle. He spun around to face me. “What is it?”

I had to force myself upright before I could speak. It felt weird talking to him while lying down in bed, for some reason. “You never answered me before.”

“Right. What were you asking?”

“Who you are.”

“Oh,” he said with a casual nod. “My name’s Levi Ackerman, LPN. I’m your nurse. They assigned me to you first thing this morning.”

“Oh. Okay.” So he was the one who’d be taking care of me for the next however long I happened to be staying in Trost. That explained why he’d been messing with my IV. He was an LPN. Just a practical assistant. It was probably his first shift here or something. That was why I’d never seen him before.

With a silent nod, Levi turned away again and swung the door open. As he walked out, he reached for the lightswitch. The room went dark again. The door closed. And just like that, he was gone, disappearing just as suddenly as he’d shown up.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Levi came in to readjust me for the twentieth time since the first morning.

“You’ve been scheduled for radiation at ten today,” he said.

“Ten?” I murmured absentmindedly, the haze of sleep still hanging over me from a few minutes before. I glanced at the clock. My eyes widened. “That’s in less than an hour!”

“I know,” he replied. “Thank god you actually woke up at a reasonable time this morning.”

I looked over at him, expecting there to be a teasing smirk on his face like there usually was with Mikasa whenever she said things like that. But the expression wasn’t there. His face hadn’t changed in the least. He just looked indifferent, unamused, maybe even a little bored, exactly the way he did every other time I’d seen him.

I shivered internally. That expression was really starting to creep me out.

“Yeah,” I groaned in response. “Because why would I want to miss lying down in a deafening noise pod and getting bombarded with gamma rays?”

“Hey, I’m not the one who has an infected liver,” Levi snapped. “As far as I know, this could wind up saving your life. So why don’t you just shut up and focus on getting better?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well that’s new.”

“What’s new?”

“Never had a nurse snap at me before,” I said flatly.

Levi sighed. “Oh,” he said. “It happens. I’ve been trying to keep my mouth shut more often. Dr. Erwin’s gone after me about it before, but you know what they say. Old habits die hard. You might as well get used to it.”

I shuffled around with my sheets and swung my legs over the side of the bed. “Wow. And I thought nurses were supposed to be nice.”

“Well, I guess that makes me no ordinary nurse, then.”

I inhaled sharply through my teeth as my bare feet hit the cold linoleum floor. I may or may not have murmured something under my breath about women’s professions.

Levi’s head spun around and his eyes latched onto me. “What was that?”

“N-nothing,” I stuttered.

“No, it was definitely something.”

I rolled my eyes and let out a heavy sigh. “I said... I thought that most nurses were women, too.”

I wasn’t trying to piss him off. I was serious. Every nurse I’ve ever had before him had _actually_ been a woman. Of course, I didn’t have time to point that out before he fired his response straight back at my face.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that my job was gender-restricted.” ****

I felt a hot, embarrassed blush flooding up to my face. “W-wait, that’s not what I-”

“Then what?” he quipped, staring up at me with his hands on his hips.

Staring _up_ at me.

I stifled a laugh.

Levi gritted his teeth and exhaled, slow and heavy. “What now?”

I bit my lip and suppressed a smile. “You are really short.”

Something about that bored, impassive look on his face changed. It was harder, steelier, suddenly about eighty times as dangerous as usual. He let out a soft, breathy almost-laugh, his razor-sharp eyes tearing holes into mine. “Yes. I’m short. Five-foot-three, to be exact. And your point is?”

“N-nothing, just... I never realized it before.”

The psychotic version of his normal expression on his face quickly receded back to its regular level of scariness. “I didn’t think so,” he said. He unplugged my IV dispenser from the wall and switched the power source to battery charge. “We should probably be getting you down to the treatment center. You wouldn’t want to be late.”

I reached out to take the rolling dispenser from him. “Whatever you say, nurseman,” I said with a smirk as I pushed it towards the door.

“Hey. Watch it, brat,” Levi snapped, shutting the door behind us.

 

* * *

 

“Hey. I brought that in half an hour ago. Aren’t you going to eat it?”

It was my fifth day in the hospital. Everything sucked so far. The second day, I was given my first dose of radiation, the first session in total of fourteen I would have over the course of that summer. I was given a break on the third day, given an extra-intensive session on the fourth, then left to my own devices for a while. I was sent in for another that morning, then another was scheduled for later in the afternoon with the promise of another break the next day. Dr. Erwin told me I’d have a screening at the end of my first week to see if the treatments were making any progress. I wasn’t sure that they would. The rock hanging around in my ribcage was giving me a bad feeling.

I glanced over my shoulder towards the sound of the voice that I’d learned to recognize. Levi was standing in the doorway of my room, tapping his fingertips impatiently against a plastic clipboard, the same one printed with patient information that he always carried around. His piercing grey eyes were fixed on me. My gaze drifted from him to the untouched tray of microwaved food on the rolling table by my bed.

“I wasn’t hungry,” I said.

It wasn’t a total lie. I was still having a hard time keeping food down, especially food as bland and shitty as what they served the overnight patients. I couldn’t eat normally if I tried. But even the threat of projectile vomit didn’t keep me from feeling the painful clawing in the pit of my stomach that generally comes with avoiding food at all costs.

Levi didn’t seem to believe me. “Look,” he deadpanned, “I know it’s not exactly gourmet, but you have to eat something sometime. You’re in a hospital. The staff won’t hesitate to tube-feed you if that’s what it comes to.”

I shifted around on the bed to face him. “That’s not it.”

The clipboard tapping stopped. “Then what is it?”

I bit my lip and breathed in before murmuring, “I just don’t want to throw up again.”

I didn’t think he’d heard me. The look that suddenly filtered onto his face said otherwise. “You’re still having problems with that?”

I swallowed (which was just about all I was able to do) and nodded. “Yeah.”

“I thought so.” Levi glanced at the watch on his left wrist. He always had it there. At least he always did when he was working his shift. I’d never seen him without it. A second later, he looked back up at me. “Okay. I’ll give you some advice. There’s a certain trick to it. Have you tried eating small amounts at intervals?”

“Wait, don’t you have other-” I suddenly found myself asking.

“The floor’s pretty calm right now, actually,” Levi said, cutting me off mid-sentence. “I think I’ve got a few minutes.” Well, that was new. His packed schedule was something that he hadn’t hesitated to remind me of before.

“Oh,” I said. “Um... well, I’ve tried doing that before, but I really don’t think they’d accommodate it here. You know, the schedule and everything.”

“They could if you told someone you needed it,” Levi said flatly, as if it should have been the most obvious thing in the world.

“Well, I’d thought about doing that, but I just didn’t want to make a big de-”

“Okay, I’m just going to stop you right there,” Levi snapped, cutting me off for the second time. “First of all, no. There is no set schedule for patient meals, and even if there was, do you really think that everyone in the hospital could adhere to it? Second of all, this is a hospital, for fuck’s sake. Accommodating patients is what we’re supposed to do. And finally, do not ever tell me you don’t want to make a big deal about anything. There are no heroes allowed around here. In fact, you probably should have made a bigger deal about the constant vomiting than you did.”

I stared at him, eyes wide. I think that was the first time I’d ever heard a nurse intentionally swear in front of me.

“Wait. How did you know about the-”

“Oh, come on, brat. It wasn’t that hard to tell. Your bathroom’s been smelling like stomach acid ever since you got here.” He wrinkled his nose. “I really wish the janitor would do a better job of cleaning it up.”

I felt a humiliated blush rising to my face. Why did he always seem to do that to me?

“Well, it’s not exactly something I have a choice about.”

“Really? Because it could be, it you went about it the right way,” Levi said. He left his clipboard in the holder by the door and made his way over to my bed. He leaned over and looked at my tray, which I hadn’t even started picking at yet. It was reheated chicken nuggets, surrounded by a few other food-like substances that I knew better than to bother trying to choke down. Admittedly, it wasn’t the worst thing they had tried to serve me, but I still wasn’t interested.

“Hm,” Levi murmured, resting his hands on the edge of my bed. “And this is normally what the other patients actually manage to eat.”

“Yeah, well, you could get me takeout from a freaking five-star restaurant and I still wouldn’t be able to eat it.”

“Just start picking at it and stop whenever you feel like you need to. That’s all you can do, really.”

“Okay.” I picked up one of the nuggets and bit down on the breading. It was lukewarm and kind of soggy, probably because it had been sitting on that tray for the past half hour. But it wasn’t quite vomit-inducing. Not yet, anyway.

“Hey, Eren?”

“Yeah?”

“I haven’t had my lunch break yet, so if you wouldn’t mind...” Levi glanced down at the tray of nuggets.

“Go ahead,” I mumbled around processed chicken. “I’m not going to finish it.”

“Thanks.” He grabbed one of the nuggets from the tray and ripped it in half between his teeth. Neither of us said anything for a while, Levi enjoying my would-be lunch and me focusing on keeping my food where it was supposed to be. He glanced over at me and nodded his head to the side.

“Hm?” I mumbled.

“Scoot. I want to sit down.”

I did as he said and shifted over a few inches. Levi turned and settled down at the foot of the bed. “So,” he said, keeping his eyes away from mine for once.

“So?” I responded.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

I breathed out and picked up another nugget off of the tray. “Are you new here?”

“Yeah, actually,” Levi answered. “I just finished my training program in May. I’ve only been working here for a few weeks. Don’t freak out or anything, though. I aced the exam, and I’m fully qualified. You’re not even my first patient.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Good to know I’m not a guinea pig.”

“So what about you?”

I swallowed and glanced over at him. “What about me?”

Levi shrugged again. “I don’t know. Anything about you.”

“Okay,” I said, digging through my brain for something interesting to tell him. Other than the whole terminal disease thing, my life in and of itself was actually pretty boring. “I’m not a fully qualified anything, and I haven’t taken a standardized exam in maybe a year and a half.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m homeschooled,” I said flatly. “My dad withdrew me a few months into my freshman year. I mean, I’m still learning at a sophomore level, training for the SATs and stuff, but it’s just... there’s really no way to gage anything anymore. I take online classes. I don’t get a summer vacation. I’ve also got a tutor who basically just visits my house and teaches me as often as he can. So everything’s a little scattered. I’ve been using Mikasa as a way to tell whether I’m in the right place with my work and everything.”

“Mikasa?”

“My sister.”

“So that’s who that girl is.”

Mind you, Mikasa had come in to visit me every afternoon by going out to the library and snagging a ride to Trost from one of the Signashina High volunteers with a license. My sister had something of a knack for making connections.

“She has the same last name as me,” Levi mentioned. “It’s kind of weird.”

“Yeah. She was already nine by the time my family adopted her, and she was used to being referred to using her old name, so she just kept it.”

Levi nodded, then things went quiet. He broke the silence again a minute later.

“So why did your dad withdraw you from school?”

“I was missing too many days. You know. Cancer stuff.”

Suddenly I felt an unsteady twist in my guts. I dropped whatever was left of my current nugget back on the tray.

Levi glanced over at me. “Done already?”

I nodded. The queasy feeling in my stomach slowly began to subside. So did the empty clawing sensation that had been bothering me for the past three days.

“Well, at least you’ve managed to eat a little something.” He stood up, the bed dipping in my direction without his weight to even it out. He picked up the half-empty tray on the rolling table. “I’ve got to go. There’s a little kid in the next ward over with the flu and a suppressed immune system who needs his temperature taken.”

“Okay,” I said, burying my legs back under the blanket. “See you later, then.”

“See you later,” he echoed, picking up his clipboard on the way out. “I’ll bring you something to eat later. It’ll be from the cafe downstairs. If it’ll quiet your guts down, I think we can hold off on the cardboard food until tomorrow.”

I watched the door swing shut behind him and stared at it long after he had disappeared out into the hallway. A strange, numb emotion was swirling around in my head. I couldn’t find the words to describe what I was feeling. I probably would have called it confused, if anyone had asked. But I that didn’t even come close to what it really was.

This was my nurse. My nurse who didn’t seem to care much about anything. My nurse who called me a brat every time he saw me. My withdrawn, bossy, easily-offended nurse who was kind of sensitive about his height and snapped at me for pointing it out _once_.

And he was treating me to decent food.

Confused didn’t even cut it.

 

* * *

 

Mikasa came in for her seventh visit a few days later.

“So how much have they done so far?”

“A shitload of radiation sessions and another scan,” I answered.

She raised her eyebrows. “Wow. And nothing’s changed?”

I shook my head. “Nope. The images they got didn’t show any change with the tumor. If they did, Dr. Handsome said I might be able to leave in as little as two weeks, but that didn’t happen, so...” I shrugged. “It looks like I’m going to be stuck here for a long time.”

Mikasa frowned. “That sucks.”

“Leukemia sucks. These are just the side effects.”

“They still suck, though,” she mumbled, kicking her flip flops off and watching them hit the floor. She turned and fixed her dark eyes on me. “We miss you at home, Eren.” She paused before adding, “Well, I miss you, anyway.”

“What about dad?” I dared to ask.

“He’s been working a lot,” Mikasa said, dropping her eyes back to her flip flops. “He kind of tends to do that when he’s upset about something. So I guess that means he misses you too.”

“I guess,” I murmured, shifting around on the hospital bed where I’d spent the past week plus one day of the summer. So. Dad was working a lot. I didn’t know why she even bothered telling me. That wasn’t news to any of us.

“I can’t believe you’re stuck in this hellhole again,” Mikasa said. She flopped back on the mattress, swinging her legs over the edge. “When was the last time you had an actual summer?”

I sighed. The rock in my ribcage suddenly felt heavier. “That’s what I’ve been asking myself lately.”

At that moment, the latch clicked on the door to my room.

“Don’t mind me. Just doing my job here.”

Levi shuffled into the room and went about adjusting my IV drip, the same as he’d been doing every hour for nearly a week. He stopped and glanced over his shoulder, his sharp grey eyes registering the girl next to me on my bed. “Oh. Didn’t know you had a visitor.”

“It’s just Mikasa again,” I said, nodding casually towards my sister. “She got here a little bit after you last came in.”

“Hey,” Mikasa mumbled. Her face looked like it was competing with Levi’s for absolute expressionlessness.

Levi, of course, remained the reigning champion. “I remember you. You’ve been coming in during visiting hours almost every day this week. Didn’t really get a chance to talk to you, though.”

Mikasa tucked her legs under her. “Did you want to?”

“Not particularly,” Levi said flatly. He turned away and focused on my monitors in the corner.

Mikasa blinked, her eyes widening just the slightest bit. Something had her interested.

“Yeah, so, this is the nurse I was telling you about last time,” I said, trying to keep the room from falling into an awkward silence. “Levi. Remember?”

Mikasa nodded. “Yeah. I do.” Her eyes didn’t move an inch.

“So what do you think? Was I accurate?”

“Accurate about what?” Levi said over his shoulder. He glanced back at us. Mikasa suddenly pretended to be very interested in the charity garden outside my window.

“My description of you.”

“Which was...” he said, trailing off and leaving an expectant blank space at the end. He looked intently at Mikasa.

My sister brought her attention back to us and smirked. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” she said. “Eren complains about his nurses all the time.”

I turned towards her, my mouth dropping open and my eyes wide. “Mikasa!”

“Lovely,” Levi deadpanned, scribbling something down on his clipboard.

I sighed internally. “So...” I said, trying to keep the conversation going. Levi seemed to have lost interest. Mikasa was once again either fascinated by something over Levi’s shoulder or...

Holy shit, she was checking out my nurse.

“So, you’re still no closer to dying than you were when you got here,” Levi said. “I think you’ll survive just fine until I come back to check on you again. Don’t get too crazy while I’m gone, kids. And remember to use protection,” he said as he slipped out the door.

“Levi, she’s my sis-” I started, but the door slammed shut before I could finish.

A second later, I heard a soft, breathy scoff next to my ear.

“That’s the bitchy nurse you told me about last time?”

I turned to look at Mikasa. Her eyebrows were raised, a steely glint in her charcoal-black eyes. “Yeah. What about him?”

“For once, he is actually as bitchy as you said he is.”

I let out a short, sharp exhale. “Yeah. No kidding.”

“He’s still pretty hot, though.”

My eyes went wide. “What?”

“Your nurse. Levi. He’s hot,” she said, as if I didn’t know who she was talking about. She turned to me and tilted her head to the side. “Come on. All personality quirks aside, don’t tell me you don’t think so, too.”

“Well... I...” I mumbled. I’d agreed with her on this sort of thing before. It wasn’t anything new between us. I can’t even count all the times I’ve let her gush about boys to me. She’d done the same for me, girlwise. I’ve never felt weird pointing out if I thought a guy was nice-looking. Finding someone attractive and actually being attracted to them are two entirely different things. Calling another guy hot was never uncomfortable for me. But for some reason, now that my nurse was involved, it suddenly was.

“Come on, Eren. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“Noticed what?” I asked, feeling more than a little bewildered. What did she see that I seemed to be missing?

“So you’re telling me that you’ve been seeing this guy every other hour, every day for the past week and you haven’t ever thought he was hot? Not even once?”

I let out a laugh that sounded more nervous than I would have liked. “Um... no?”

“Hm,” Mikasa scoffed, her smirk faltering for a split second. “Well. I think he is.”

“Why?”

“Don’t really know. He’s kind of got this... this eccentric charm to him. He’s got some pretty sexy hair. The shortness subtracts a few points. And the personality. Not many, though.” She stopped for a second, nibbling at her lip. “And his arms. Have you even seen them? I mean, if you look up toned in a dictionary you’d probably get a picture of that.”

“Well, I’m sorry I don’t spend most of my time here staring at my nurse’s arms,” I said with a hollow laugh.

She grinned at me and punched me playfully in the shoulder. “Ha. Homophobe.”

“But seriously. What’s with the nursely fangirling all of a sudden?”

“I’m not fangirling. He’s still a dick. He just happens to be an attractive one.”

I laughed again. “Yeah. Whatever you say.”

Mikasa left after three hours. Levi dropped in once and we all did our best to ignore each other. The next time he came in, she was gone.

“Had fun with Mikasa, I’m guessing?” he asked as he tapped buttons on my monitors.

I made a disgusted face behind his back. “Depends on the context.”

“The context?” Levi spun around, his face coming out of its expressionless phase for just a moment and twisting up almost to match mine. “Ugh. That’s not what I meant at all. Jesus, brat, get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Hey. It’s not my fault you don’t know how to word a question,” I retorted, throwing my hands out to the side in a you-started-it gesture.

Levi sighed. He seemed to do that a lot. “Whatever, Immature Irving.”

“Excuse me, it’s Eren Jaeger-bom-bastic,” I tossed back, enunciating every syllable and shooting them at him like Nerf darts. “Get it right.”

Levi glanced over his shoulder and stuck his tongue out at me. “Shut up.”

I snorted to myself and looked away from him. _And you’re calling me the immature one._

As Levi turned away to finish up readjusting my saline drip, I glanced back at him. And then the glancing turned into staring. My eyes somehow wound up wandering to his arms. I remembered what Mikasa has said earlier. Her words echoed in my head.

_Have you even seen them? I mean, if you look up toned in a dictionary you’d probably get a picture of that._

I blinked in surprise. She was right. They totally were.

 

* * *

 

That first week was the last healthy one I would have for a long time. After that, things started to go downhill fast.

The second week was the same as the first. Radiation, day after day. A break every now and again to keep me from getting gamma poisoning or whatever else might go wrong if the doctors went too crazy. Then, at the end of the second week, there was another scan. The results were almost exactly the same. The radiation didn’t seem to have done anything but leave dry, scaly patches all over my skin. The useless accumulation of cells in my liver hadn’t shrunken in the least since I had first checked in. Dr. Erwin decided to step up his game and started administering chemotherapy in alternation with everything else. So, naturally, this brought on symptoms of its own, ones which were worse than any problems my liver had given me so far. Within a few days, I was vomiting again, my hair had started falling out and the drugs in my system had started to give me migraines.

But, of course, the tumor wasn’t giving in to that, either.

Two weeks turned into three. July eventually became August. The dull weight in the pit of my ribcage seemed to grow heavier with each passing day. Then the weight turned into all-out pain. I was spending every second of every day walking around feeling as if someone had just punched me. I could feel on my own that my condition was getting worse. I didn’t need the scan results from Dr. Erwin telling me two more times that my tumor wasn’t shrinking, no matter what he put me through to force it into submission.

All through the torturous weeks, Mikasa kept visiting me.

I don’t know what my dad was doing the entire time. Working, probably. It seemed that all he ever had time to do was drive Mikasa around when she bothered him enough. The only time I ever saw him was once or twice while he was coming in to drop Mikasa off or take her home again. And even then we didn’t say much. Mainly because there was nothing to say. At least nothing that we didn’t know already. I was sick. I was getting worse. My tumor absolutely refused to shrink. No one knew where things would be headed next, or if I would be okay in the end or not.

 

* * *

 

Five and a half weeks in, Mikasa stayed through one of my chemotherapy sessions.

I still had the PICC lines stuck into both my arms, even though the assortment of IV drips I’d been plugged into a few minutes earlier were gone. The plastic tubes felt weird, being stuck so far into my veins, but they were there for a reason. As far as I knew, they’d be staying there until I either died or left. My brain was already starting to pound from the side effects. I ran a hand over the curve of my aching skull. My hair was getting so thin. I’d asked Mikasa to bring a razor in one of these days and hack off whatever was left before I started looking stupid.

I heard the muffled tap of broken-in Converse before my door swung open and Mikasa walked in, carrying a big hospital-issue plastic container with her. She pushed it into my lap before jumping up onto the bed next to me.

“I’m betting it won’t be five minutes before you toss your cookies,” she said.

“Shut up,” I growled, clutching the container to my chest. “You’re disgusting.”

Even as I said the words, I was choking back a lethal bout of nausea. I tried to cover it up, but I could already feel my stomach churning uneasily. I bit down on my tongue, determined to keep the tiny amount of hospital food I’d eaten a few hours earlier in its place. But, knowing the current state of my digestive system, that wasn’t likely to happen.

“Yeah, well, it’s gonna happen, whether you like it or not,” she shot back, folding her legs up on the edge of the mattress.

I sighed and forced myself to swallow. “As if I need you to remind me.”

The door of my room swung open again without so much as a knock. It was Levi. I couldn’t help the wave of relief that washed over me at seeing him. He’d been the one to disconnect me from the ungodly chemicals that had been draining into my bloodstream a few minutes earlier. I’d never been happier to be taken off an IV in my life. Well, other than the last time I’d been given chemo. But that was a long time ago. Fresher pain is always worse.

“Hey, brat,” he said. “You still doing alright so far?”

I kept my mouth shut and nodded. The painful twisting inside me was getting worse. I felt like if I tried to speak, something other than words might come up.

Levi sighed and pursed his lips together. “You know, there’s no shame in side effects. Everyone has them. It’s not like seeing you vomit is anything new to me.”

Mikasa held her hands up like a choir singer. “Testify,” she said in the worst southern accent I’d ever heard.

“What, so now you’re encouraging me to puke my guts out?” I snarled, my hands tightening on the container.

“No,” Mikasa said. “Just pointing out that you don’t have to power through your symptoms or anythi-”

My stomach lurched and half-digested food came spilling out of my mouth before she had even finished her sentence.

I felt my sister place her hand on my back. “Hey. Easy, there,” she said softly to me as I continued to cough and choke. It didn’t stop until there was nothing but thin, bitter liquid welling up in the back of my throat. My body still shuddered as if it expected something more to come up. Mikasa ran her hand in small circles over my shoulder blades. “That’s it. Breathe. Just breathe.”

I coughed a few more times before the dry-heaving finally stopped and I was able to sit up. “Jesus fucking...”

“Here,” a voice said. I looked up to see a hand outstretched in front of me, its fingers clutching a wad of wet paper towels. My eyes traveled up and landed on Levi’s calm face.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, taking the towels from him and swiping vigorously at my bile-stained mouth. He stood back before turning and disappearing into the small bathroom door. He came back with twice as many paper towels, one handful soaked with cold water and the other dry.

“Take these. You need them,” he commanded. I looked at the backhandedly offered towels, then at the acid-stained ones in my hands, then back up at Levi.

“Just drop those in the vomit holder. It’s not like you’re going to need them anymore.”

I did as I was told, then continued to clean myself up with the new paper towels he’d given me. I tossed those in the container as well before drying myself off with the ones he’d left unmoistened. He snatched up the plastic container from the bed and slipped out of the room, holding it out in front of him as if it were on fire.

I stared after him, even after the door had slammed shut. Mikasa did the same.

“Wow,” she said after a minute. “That was fast.”

I shrugged. “It’s normal. For him, anyway.”

“Is he always such a clean freak?”

“Yes,” I answered, sighing. He’d done the same thing every time I’d thrown up. It was as if he couldn’t stand the sight of anything soiling my precious face.

Mikasa rifled through the bag of random crap she’d brought with her and fished out a pack of gum. She flicked it open and handed me a piece. I took it and crammed it gratefully into my mouth, happy to taste anything other than my own vomit.

“I guess it makes sense,” Mikasa said while I worked the bitter aftertaste out of my mouth. “You know, the whole obsession with sanitation. He probably has to be that way. He is a nurse, after all.”

“I know, but I’ve never had one _this obsessed_ with keeping me clean.”

Mikasa laughed. “You sure it’s just you he does this to?”

“Probably not,” I replied, giving her a weak smile. ****

Levi came back, a fresh container tucked under one arm. He tossed it to me without even half the care Mikasa had used with the first one. “Feeling any better?” he asked.

I sucked on the gum in my mouth. I felt the pulsing migraine starting to build up in the back of my skull. Still I forced myself to smile again. “A little.”

His eyes fixed on me for a second, then flicked away. Something about that one tiny motion told me he knew I was lying. “Alright,” he said, despite everything. “Then let me know if there’s anything else you need. And you’ve got your friend there if you feel like throwing up again,” he added, nodding at the container in my lap.

“Okay,” I said quietly, shifting around on my bed. Another wave of pain pulsed outwards from the core of my brain. I gritted my teeth, squashing the gum between them. It wouldn’t be long until the pain would start messing with my vision and making it hard to sit upright.

“Levi.”

My nurse turned around, his fingers already resting on the door handle. “Yes?”

“Um... I...” I stuttered. I didn’t know why I was hesitating. I just had to ask him for a favor. One favor. And then I wouldn’t have to deal with the sensation of my skull splintering like an eggshell over the next two hours.

“What is it? Come on, brat, I don’t have all day,” Levi snipped impatiently.

Mikasa’s hand squeezed my shoulder. I took a deep breath and asked. “Could you maybe bring me some Tylenol or something? I always get migraines after these things.”

Levi blinked. “Oh. Sure. I’ll be back in a minute.”

With that, he slipped through the door and disappeared into the hallway.

I shifted my legs up from the side of the bed to lie back into my pillows. Mikasa flipped herself around and leaned back on the footboard. “Well, this is new,” she remarked.

“What’s new?”

“You. Actually asking for things when you need them.”

“What do you mean?” I scoffed.

“I mean you always have a hard time asking for stuff. Even stupid things like that,” she said, flicking her hand at the half-closed door. “You always try to fight through the symptoms by yourself. It’s like you’re trying to be a hero or something.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, taking in a quick, hissing breath as another ache throbbed its way through my brain. “I’m not trying to be anything. I just... I don’t want to make it a scene over it or anything. That’s it.”

She shifted around and dropped her gaze into the sheets. “You know, Mom was exactly the same way.”

Wow. That stung. “Yeah. She was,” I murmured.

Neither of us said anything for a while after that. The only thing to break the silence was the sound of Levi’s voice drifting in from the hallway as he pushed the door open again.

“Okay. I hope you’re not brand-specific, because all we have in stock here are generics,” he explained. He dropped two unmarked white tablets into the palm of my hand. “Here, take these.” He handed me one of those miniature 8-ounce water bottles and placed a small plastic bag on the rolling table. “I brought you two more doses, just in case those don’t work or you need them later. Don’t go taking them all at once, now,” he added with a completely straight face.

I quickly slipped the two tablets onto my tongue and took a sip of water. My stomach immediately twisted up at the feeling of not being completely empty. I gritted my teeth and ignored it. I wasn’t in the mood to puke again anytime soon.

“Thanks, Levi,” I said, offering him a weak smile. He didn’t return it. I hadn’t expected him to.

“It’s my job,” he replied. “Just let me know if there’s anything else you need. That little red button is on your TV remote for a reason, you know.”

“Okay,” I murmured again. Levi didn’t say another word, only nodded. His eyes met mine, just for a second. I could almost hear his voice in my head saying _Well done, brat_. Then he walked back out into the hallway.

Mikasa waited the door swing shut before turning back to me. “I knew something else was up. Now are you actually feeling better?” she asked.

I smiled. “For once, I actually am.”

 

* * *

 

That last comment didn’t hold true for very long.

I think that the chemotherapy did a lot more harm than good. Even more weeks were wasted in the hospital, Dr. Erwin and his staff shooting me up with chemicals and radiation, then sending me into radiology for scan after scan after scan. It turned into a cycle, a vicious one that didn’t seem to have an end. The tumor started to shrink, then grew back, then shrank again, then spread past its former boundaries before receding back to its original size. My condition got worse. My inability to eat correctly finally got to me, and I started losing weight again. My hair was gone. The chemo side effects tortured me on a daily basis. Fluid started building up under my skin, which had long since turned yellow and jaundiced. So had my eyes. Every time I looked in the mirror, I felt like I was looking at a rotting corpse.

Mikasa still came in to visit me every day. She never said it to my face, but I knew it was because she was worried. She always acted a little differently when I was really sick. She’d stopped punching me in the arm, wasn’t poking fun at me nearly as much, and a billion other tiny quirks that no one would have noticed but me. My dad, on the other hand, I barely ever saw. I wasn’t surprised. If I were him, I wouldn’t have wanted to see me, either.

And I was putting up with Levi and his bullshit through all of it.

I don’t know if he treated any of his other patients the way he treated me. In all of the three years I had been dealing with my cancer, I had never had a nurse who had snapped at me, sassed me, cracked jokes about me to my face and swore in my presence even half as much as Levi did. I was surprised no one had complained about him. But I had the feeling that Dr. Erwin had hired him fresh out of training for a reason. Maybe he just kept him around because he was good at what he did. In spite of all the blatant insults and constant jabs about how I kept my hospital room, I was doing okay in Levi’s hands.

I’d been in the hospital for more than six weeks when Dr. Erwin finally gave me the news.

My tumor wasn’t shrinking enough for my symptoms to subside. He’d been trying to avoid going to invasive measures, but at that point it didn’t look like he had any other choices. He would continue administering the treatments, just to see if he could get my tumor to recede again. As soon as that happened, I would be going into surgery. He would give it two more weeks. And if nothing happened, he would go through with it anyway.

A partial hepatectomy. That was what he had called it. I, on the other hand, had another name for it entirely.

I know this is going to come out later, so I’ll just go ahead and say it now. I’m scared of surgery.

I’d only ever gone into surgery once before. It was a bone marrow transplant. I’d gotten it back when I had first been diagnosed and people still hoped that I would one day be free of this demonic disease. I was awake the whole time, and the entire thing was performed with needles. I wasn’t cut open, wasn’t put under and didn’t wind up with any scars from the experience. I was given local anesthetic and everything, so I wouldn’t feel needles the size of chopsticks getting stabbed into my flesh, but I was never, for lack of a better term, put to sleep. They said it was a surgical procedure, but I never counted it as one.

This was going to be different. I’d be lying out on a table. Totally unconscious. My stomach sliced open and all my insides exposed. Strangers poking around in them and cutting me into pieces...

The mere mention of my impending doom sent chills down my spine.

At least, different chills than the occasional nerve tremors from the chemotherapy.

Three days after the announcement, Levi was hanging around in my room. He’d done it before. Repeatedly. I didn’t know why. He said he had a few free minutes before he had to tend to his next patient. I told him that I didn’t see any reason for him to be hanging out with me, of all the people in the hospital.

“Simple,” he said. “You put up with me better than anyone else in this medical hellhole.”

Oh. So that was why he bitched at me so much and hadn’t been reported yet.

“I don’t really think I have a choice,” I responded. “You know, since you’ve been taking care of me this entire time and everything.” I shifted around in my bed, trying to find a comfortable position. Nothing was comfortable as long as I had that stupid tumor sitting in my liver like a cluster of buckshot.

“Actually, you do.”

My gaze ripped away from the FRIENDS rerun we’d been watching and latched onto Levi. “What?”

He looked back at me, his eyes cool like drops of glass. “If I was giving you any trouble, you could have asked the administration to assign you someone else. It’s a regulation policy. Because we value our patients that fucking much.”

“I... I didn’t know that,” I stammered.

Levi let out a sharp laugh. “You’ve been going here for how long, and you didn’t know that?”

“No.”

It was a lie. I had known about the policy the entire time. I just never saw any point in actually taking advantage of it. Besides, getting rid of Levi meant dumping him on some other helpless patient. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about that idea.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” he said. “If you’d gotten rid of me, then I wouldn’t have had anyone to bitch at anymore.” He turned back towards the TV. If I hadn’t been hallucinating from the chemo side effects, I might have thought there were the faintest traces of a smile on his face.

We sat there in silence for a few more minutes, listening to Rachel talk about her horrible love life before Levi’s pager interrupted and he had to go patch up some kid’s broken stitches. Before he left, he stopped in the doorway and turned back to me.

“Let me know how the episode ends, okay?” he said.

I cocked my head to the side, confused. “But I thought you’d already seen the entire series.”

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Does it matter? Honestly, brat, you can’t expect me to remember the exact plot of every episode. Especially when there are at least thirty with the same theme,” he replied, nodding towards the TV.

“Okay. I’ll tell you later,” I said, giving him a weak smile. As usual, he didn’t return it.

“See you.”

“See you.”

With that, Levi slipped outside and closed the door behind him. I turned away from the door and tried to focus my attention on the FRIENDS episode and remember where the hell I’d left off. But for some reason, I couldn’t. I just stared at blankly at the screen, not entirely aware of what was going on. All I could think about was how unexpectedly empty the room felt. How everything seemed so quiet and lonely all of a sudden.

Something in me wished Levi was still there.

 

* * *

 

Dr. Erwin scanned me again five days later. The tumor had shrunk again.

My worst fears were about to be realized.

Mikasa had come in to visit me the day before it happened. She wouldn’t be able to come back for a while afterwards. My dad hadn’t let her get a summer job, so she’d found other things to keep herself busy. One of them happened to be a seven-day wildlife survival camp in the mountains upstate. She’d be staying for the last few dregs of August before school started again. And, conveniently, had her first day scheduled right before my surgery.

“So, Dr. Handsome is gonna be cutting you open, huh?” she said to me from the other end of my hospital bed. ****

I shuddered. “Wow, Mikasa, it sounds _so_ much more pleasant when you put it like that.”

Mikasa only smirked. “Don’t worry about it. He’s a doctor, Eren. He knows what he’s doing. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You know what the worst that can happen is,” I said.

Mikasa’s smirk disappeared. She stared into my eyes, and I stared gravely back. She quickly realized that her last sentence was probably the worst thing she could have possibly said to me. ****

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

“It’s okay,” I responded just as softly.

“No, that was insensitive. I wasn’t thinking...”

“You shouldn’t have had to think. You were right. I shouldn’t be so nervous. I just...” I trailed off, unable to find a way to finish my thoughts.

Mikasa reached out and placed her hand on my small, bony ankle. “You’re scared, aren’t you?”

I nodded. There really wasn’t much more to it than that.

My sister dropped her gaze to the sheets for a second, then brought it back up to me. She leaned forward on her knees and wrapped her arms around my skeletal shoulders. I returned the hug without a second thought, reveling in the feeling of human contact and her silky black hair against my bare scalp. She’d chopped it off a week earlier and turned it into a spiky little pixie cut. She always got her hair cut whenever I lost mine.

“You’ll be okay, Eren,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

I bit my lip, trying to ignore the feeling of tears stabbing at the corners of my eyes. “How do you know that?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Because I do. You’ll see,” she replied. She released me, then sat back on her heels and smiled. I tried my best to do the same.

“Do you really have to leave?” I asked like a forlorn preschooler.

“Yeah,” she said with a shrug. “If I’d known this was going to happen, I never would have signed up for that stupid camp, but...” She looked at me and shrugged again.

“I’ll miss you, Mikasa.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” she replied. “But remember to call me before you go into surgery. Then we’ll facetime or something afterwards. You better not forget.”

I couldn’t help letting out a nervous laugh. “Okay, chief.”

 

* * *

 

The day of the surgery came long before I was prepared for it.

I was lying alone in my room. The space was deathly quiet, save for the constant hum from my monitors and the saline drip dispenser that would soon be replaced with anesthetic. The guardrails that up until that point had been folded under the mattress of my bed had been pulled up and locked into place. The wheels all had their brakes off and were ready to be rolled out into the hallway and towards the operating room.

As I lay still in my bed, I could hear my blood rushing in my ears. My heart was beating so hard that I could feel it pulsing inside my chest. In less than an hour, I’d be going into surgery.

And I was absolutely terrified.

I shifted around under the blankets for the six hundredth time. There wasn’t really much else to do. I wished someone were here. I wished that I had someone to talk to, to distract me from the traumatizing thoughts rushing through my head, to let me know that I was going to be okay and I wasn’t alone.

I wished I had Mikasa.

But she wasn’t there. She was at camp, learning how to build fires and fight bears and whatever the fuck else.

So I was alone. Not like that had never happened before.

I glanced over at the plastic tv remote hanging over the edge of my bedframe. Maybe if I turned the tv on it would help to drown out the deafening voices in my head telling me over and over that I was going to die. My arm twitched on top of the blanket. I needed something, anything to make the horrible thoughts stop.

My eyes suddenly switched their focus from the power button to the little red circle just above it.

The call button.

I thought about pressing it.

I looked away. No. It was a terrible idea. I would just have to suck it up and keep waiting.

I looked back at the button. I couldn’t suck it up. I was panicking. I needed help. I couldn’t do this on my own.

I thought of Mikasa again. She’d been the only one to visit me during this entire hellish experience. She was the only one who could have helped me. But now she was gone. Right when I needed her most, she was so conveniently unavailable.

The only other person who could come even close to doing what Mikasa did for me was...

Was...

I pressed the call button and immediately regretted it.

A moment later, the door of my room swung open. Levi strode in, his face expressionless as usual. “Hey, brat,” he said. Strangely enough, the derogatory term didn’t seem so insulting anymore. “Dying already?”

I forced a nervous laugh past my lips. “N-no.”

“Oh. What a shame.” He came closer, then stopped, his muscular arms crossed over his chest. He gave me a quick once-over with his steely grey eyes. “No Mikasa today, huh?”

“No. She’s at camp.” I couldn’t help the low, barely-even-out-loud growl that came afterward. “The selfish bitch.”

“That’s unfortunate,” he said, an amused lilt in his voice. He must have heard me. “So what’s wrong, then?”

“U-um...” I stammered. What was wrong? “N-nothing, I guess.”

The amusement flickered out as if someone had flipped a switch. “Nothing? Then what the hell did you call me in here for?”

“I...” I was skating on thin ice. I couldn’t tell him. He wouldn’t care. He would laugh. He would call me a pussy and tell me to get over it. Going to him for moral support was like asking to get slapped in the face. Why the fuck did I press that stupid call button?

“Well?”

“...No reason, I guess.”

Levi raised his eyebrows. “Seriously? I have eight other patients that I could be tending to and you just decide to call me in here on a fucking whim?”

“No, I just...”

“You just what?” His eyes were locked onto mine, his gaze burning straight into my soul.

I swallowed, digging my fingers into the blanket. “N-never mind,” I murmured, tearing my eyes away from his. “You can go, if you want to.”

I heard Levi let out a soft, whispery sigh. “You can be a real jackass sometimes, you know that, Eren?”

I looked back up at him. For once, he’d actually used my name. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you must think I’m stupid or something,” he said. He took another step towards my bed. I had to fight the urge to scoot back. “This entire time you’ve been trying to power through your symptoms and play fucking hero or something. I mean, I’ve hardly heard a single word of complaint out of you this entire time. But now, all of a sudden, you’ve decided to use your call button and bring me in here? And you are actually fucking dense enough to tell me that there wasn’t any reason for that?” He slowed down and took a breath, pressing a hand to his forehead and tangling his fingers in his hair.

I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off again. “Look, brat,” he said. “I don’t know why you pressed that button. But, if you have even the faintest idea of what it’s meant for, you obviously had a reason for it. And if something is wrong enough for you to actually bother bringing me in here when there are probably about twelve other things I could be doing right now, it must be really, _really_ wrong. So I just want to know one thing, Eren.” There was my name again. I felt his steely grey eyes delving deep into my soul. It suddenly occurred to me why they call it eye _contact_.

“What. Is. Wrong?” ****

“I-I...” I choked, my voice barely above a whisper. I didn’t want to say it. It was too stupid. Too embarrassing. But still... “I really can’t...”

“Come on, Eren,” Levi said, his voice soft and coaxing. “It’s okay. You can tell me.” I looked up at him. He’d never spoken to me that way before.

I bit my lip and sucked in a deep breath, then let it out, painfully slow. “I’ve never had a surgery before. And... I’m scared.”

For the longest time, Levi didn’t say a word. He just stood there, staring at me as if my cancer had suddenly spread to my face. He blinked, then the razor edge in his eyes started to soften.

“Oh,” he murmured. “Okay.”

My brain stuttered. I felt my heart do the same. I stared at Levi. He was moving closer, headed towards the chair next to my bed where Mikasa would occasionally sit when she didn’t feel like cramming herself onto my bed. What was going on? What was Levi doing? Wasn’t he supposed to be not caring and laughing in my face and calling me a pussy and telling me to get over it and everything else I’d been thinking of just a few seconds ago?

Levi settled down in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees and locking his fingers together in front of him. His eyes never left mine for even a second.

“What exactly are you scared of?” he asked.

“I... well, it’s...” Wow. Now that I actually had the chance to tell someone what my problem was, I couldn’t find the words to do it. I pushed myself just a little more upright against my pillows and twisted up the edge of the blanket between my fingers, then took a breath to try again. “It’s about my mom.”

Levi’s face didn’t change. His eyes stayed soft. “Your mom?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “You see, this cancer, the leukemia... When I was ten, she was diagnosed with the same thing. And... she died of it. After a few months.”

“So is it your cancer that you’re scared of?”

“No, it’s the surgery. It’s definitely the surgery. You see, my mom had to go into surgery a few months after she was diagnosed. Our old doctor, Dr. Hannes, he hadn’t caught her leukemia until it had already progressed. She was in stage four already. There was a growth in her spinal cord. They did all these screenings, and they said it was intramedullary or something and they couldn’t operate without risking all this nerve damage, so they tried to treat it with radiation and chemo and everything, but...” My throat started to tighten up and forced me to stop. I reached up an ran a shaky hand over what should have been my hair.

“But nothing was working,” I continued. “And before long, everything started to spread, then it was in her brain, but everything was still inoperable, and the treatments still weren’t getting any responses, but they managed to get the tumor in her brain to shrink back a little, so they took her into surgery, just to give it a try, and...” My voice cracked, choking off the last few words of my story and forcing me to start again. “And she never came out. She died on the operating table.”

The room fell into a silence almost as deep and consuming as the one that had been hanging in the air before Levi came in. I stared at him, and he stared straight back at me, his calculating gray eyes searching my face. Things still felt unfinished.

“S-so,” I choked out, “that’s why I’m scared. Because... my mom died in surgery, and I-I feel like... something’s going to go wrong, and... and I’m not going to come back out...”

“Eren.”

Levi’s voice was so quiet it hardly even qualified as a whisper. I heard it all the same. I turned towards him, my eyes stinging. “Yeah?”

“I want you to listen to me, okay?” he said. His eyes caught mine and held them captive.

I nodded slowly, fighting back the tears my mom had brought up. “Okay.”

“I know you’re frightened,” he murmured. “It’s okay. This is your first surgery, and you have every right to be scared. But you shouldn’t panic. Maybe your tumor hasn’t responded to treatment as well as it could have. But it’s still in a place where it can easily be removed without causing any serious damage. You’re still alive, and as far as we can tell, you won’t be dying anytime soon. The surgery is going to be fine. You’re going to go into the operating room, we’re going to anesthetize you and you aren’t going to feel a thing until you wake up. And by then everything will be over. Your tumor will be gone, and you’ll be able to go home once your symptoms clear up. You’re going to be okay. Understand?”

I took a deep, shaky breath. “Y-Yes,” I choked. Something that felt like a drop of acid slipped out from the corner of my eye and rolled over my cheek.

“Hey, don’t be like that, okay?” Levi said, watching as another foreign object streaked a searing path over my face. He untwisted his fingers and placed one hand on the guardrail. “You’re going to be fine. You’ll make it through this.”

“Are you sure?” I said, my voice rasping over the congealing lump in my throat.

“What kind of nurse would I be if I wasn’t?” Levi answered. He gave me a small, encouraging smile. Yes. You heard me. Levi actually smiled.

I let my gaze fall away from his and sank back into the pillows on my bed. I’d have to remove them once Dr. Erwin and all the OR nurses came. My fingers still worried at the edge of the blanket, my palms cold and sweaty. My heart was still hammering against my ribs, threatening to punch a hole through my already-doomed liver. I was still scared. But it wasn’t nearly so bad as it was before.

I glanced over at the guardrail. At Levi’s hand, his strong, slender fingers draped over the cold metal.

Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed it.

Levi didn’t act shocked. He didn’t say anything or try to wrench his hand away from mine. He just let me take it, twisting my fingers around his and clutching them as if it would save my life. Still, he didn’t move, not even when my shaking hand tightened so much on his that our fingers turned white. Not until we heard the latch click open and Dr. Erwin Smith came striding in, his entourage of OR nurses following closely behind.

Dr. Erwin looked at the both of us and raised his majestic eyebrows. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No, not at all” Levi said flatly. He twitched his fingers as if to say _You can let go now, Eren_. I didn’t. ****

“Well, preparations in the operating room are almost finished. All that’s left now is to bring in the patient,” he said in that factual voice of his. “We’ll just be administering a small dose of vicodin. Then we’ll be good to go. How are you holding up, Eren?”

I choked down the lump in my throat and forced myself to answer. “Fine.”

“Good,” he said. One of the nurses stuck the end of a plastic syringe into an open port of my PICC line. A moment later, I felt like my skull was floating away from my spine. Suddenly everything in the room was the most hilarious thing I had ever seen in my life. I started to laugh uncontrollably, and my death grip on Levi’s fingers finally came loose. He eased his hand away from mine and stood up.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Y-yes,” I said, laughter bubbling up into my voice. “A lot.”

“Good,” he replied in almost the same tone that Dr. Erwin had used before. He began milling about the room with all the other nurses, unplugging my monitors and giving the loose wires to me, switching my IV dispenser to battery power and a million other small tasks that I couldn’t be bothered to name. Dr. Erwin came back in while they were working and introduced me to the anesthesiologist and the surgeon who would be doing the majority of the cutting while Dr. Erwin directed. The pillows were cleared away from my bed, and I was told to lie on my back. Then the entourage of nurses organized themselves around the frame of my bed and began rolling me towards the door. I stared up at the ceiling as I was wheeled out into the hallway and began traveling towards the operating room.

The vicodin only did so much to calm down the raging torrent of trauma and misery in my head. I was still having visions of my lifeless body lying on the table, my skin split open like a cheap toothpaste tube, my guts spilling out, my monitor lines going flat...

“Almost there, Eren. You still doing alright?”

Levi’s voice broke through the surface of my thoughts like a lifeguard reaching for a drowning victim. I blinked and strained my eyes to search for him. He was leaning over me, his dark hair pushed neatly into a surgery cap.

I nodded as much as I could while lying on my back. “I think so.”

I watched as a line in the ceiling passed over us and the ceiling tiles changed. I heard the clear, mechanical blips of awaiting monitors. The smell of antibacterial cleaner was stronger than ever. My bed shuddered to a stop and one of the nurses tugged my blankets off of me. All of a sudden I knew exactly where we were.

Dr. Erwin leaned over me, a pale blue surgical mask over his mouth and nose. “Well, here we are,” he said. “Are you ready,Eren?”

I tried to nod. I really wasn’t feeling it anymore.

“Alright,” Dr. Erwin responded. “I’m just going to need you to move over this way.”

I strained my neck to look over my shoulder. My bed had been rolled up directly next to the operating table and the right guardrail snapped back into place. All of a sudden I felt the nurses’ hands all over me, pushing me gently sideways, giving me small murmurs of encouragement as if they were trying to get a baby bird to fly. I rolled onto my elbows and began inching towards the operating table.

“Yes, that’s it.”

“Right there. There you go.”

I dropped back down on the operating table and watched as my bed was rolled away into an empty corner. Suddenly I felt something long, thin and heavy fall across my legs. I looked down and the blips from my heart monitor began to speed up. It was a big, heavy strap, one that looked ominously like the ones used to bind mental patients to their beds.

“W-what is that for?” I demanded, my voice only slightly less than a panicky shriek.

“A regulation safety measure,” Levi said. My eyes relaxed and I found myself staring up at his calm, collected face. There was a surgery mask over his mouth and nose as well, mint green, just like his scrubs. “Patients sometimes kick around in their sleep. Anesthesia isn’t much different. We don’t want you moving around during the surgery. That would be bad, no?”

“Yeah. It would.” I wanted to laugh, but the anxiety throbbing in my chest wouldn’t allow it. Another nurse straightened out one of my arms and secured it in place. Levi moved out of my field of vision for a second to secure my other arm to the operating table. I heard him talking to someone just to the left of my shoulder, standing next to my IV dispenser. The anesthesiologist, I guessed. When Levi came back, he was holding a clear plastic breathing mask.

“Alright, Eren,” Levi said, reaching over me to pick something up from the other side of the table. He clicked it onto the open tube at the tip of the mask. “I’m going to put the mask on you now. This might feel a little weird, but don’t panic. Just breathe normally, alright?”

“Okay,” I said. My left arm was starting to go numb. I could already feel cold liquid draining into my veins. My heart kept stammering. It wouldn’t be much longer now.

With one quick, fluid movement, Levi slid the mask over my mouth and nose and tightened the straps around my head. The overwhelming smell of sterilized plastic burned the inside of my nose. I felt cold gas seeping through the vent in the mask. The tube to the gaseous anesthetic draped itself over my shoulder.

Levi leaned over me, his eyes fixing themselves to mine. “Okay, Eren. I want you to count down from ten for me. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, the mask screwing with my ability to speak. I stared blankly up at Levi’s face. The numbness in my arm was starting to spread. “Ten...”

Levi looked up at one of the other nurses and said something I couldn’t understand. I started wondering if LPNs were qualified to work in the operating room.

“Nine...”

Someone in the operating room said something to either me or Levi. I wasn’t sure who anymore. They sounded annoyed. Levi said something else. His words sounded even more slurred than before.

“Eight...”

I started wondering about his qualifications again. I kept searching my brain for that simple little fact that for some reason I wasn’t able to find. Was Levi supposed to be in here? Was he?

“Seven...”

I didn’t even hear what the invisible speaker said this time. But Levi heard it. He looked down at me. The room started going dark.

“Sixxxxnvmfhbnnjhrnjwfunl......”

“I’ll see you later, Eren.”

 **  
** I never did make it to one.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of the backstory.  
> That's it. it's done. Finally.  
> Now that all of this is over, we can get everyone back into the actual story in the next update.  
> I apologize for any triggers or inaccuracies in the information. Sincerely. I'm just a writer. And kind of a stupid one, at that. And too many priorities to know how to keep them in order. So, if something is wrong with this chapter, just know that I am sorry in spirit. And if not... well,that's great. This chapter took me three days to edit. I tried.  
> Next chapter: resuming the actual plot!!!!  
> See you next update, everyone.


	5. Bribery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might change the title of this chapter later on.  
> Hi. I'm back, and I promise this story is actually going to be going somewhere from this point onward. Also hopefully I'll be able to update a bit more often, since the other fic that I'm working on at the same time as this one is almost finished. I'm still writing this one, since it's taking a lot longer than I first thought it would. I had the first few chapters sitting around for a few months, though, so I've had a pretty good amount of time to get some sufficient editing done. Since is this story is turning out to be so damn long, I figured it might as well be adequately written.  
> Shameless self-promotion time.  
> If anyone even cares, my author blog is asking-appelia on tumblr, and I'm tracking the following tags for this story: fic: tmi, fic: tmiu, and fic: the monsters inside us. I figured the abbreviations might make things a little easier. Not that anything has shown up with these tags yet. Hardly anyone has even bothered leaving a review on this on either of the places I've posted it. But whatever. I can wait. We still have a LONG way to go.  
> I don't have anything else interesting to say. It's 11:11 at night. Well, there's something.  
> Story time.

 

 

“And that’s just about it.”

The closing words of Levi’s speech dragged me back into reality. I glanced around the room. The circle had been completely breezed through. Levi was sitting back down. I had missed his entire introduction.

_Dammit._

Hanji looked briefly around the circle. “Alright, looks like that’s everyone,” she chirped. “So, since it’s our first meeting, I thought we wouldn’t get into anything too heavy just yet...” She glanced at the clipboard in her lap. “I’ve got a few ice breakers planned out, just so everyone gets to know each other a little better.” ****

A few unenthusiastic noises were issued from the circle, Jean in particular. Levi cut in, raising his voice above the complaints. “Also, we’ll be getting food after this. You’ll have to participate if you want any.”

The noises stopped. Sasha’s face brightened like a puppy’s would if you held bacon over its head. I sighed and hunched over in my chair. As if the circle of self-deprecation hadn’t been enough.

As it turned out, the ice breakers weren’t anywhere near as bad as I thought. They weren’t anything like the stupid multiplayer games and embarrassing group exercises I had come to connotate with the term “ice breakers.” We’d just started off with Hanji asking us all sorts of weird questions off of a list on her clipboard and us having to come up with answers of the tops of our heads. I discovered that Sasha’s favorite band was Five Seconds of Summer, Krista’s favorite quote was from Dr. Seuss, Bertolt had been obsessed with giraffes as a child, and that if Reiner had a yacht he would call it the Armadillo Warrior. If Ymir had to be a flower she would be a tigerlily. Connie’s favorite superhero was Deadpool. If Armin had to choose a fictional character to represent his personal philosophy, he would probably choose Haruhi Fujioka. Annie had once stalked an internet blogger for a week. Jean wanted to be a cat for 24 hours, and the weirdest fact about Marco was that he’d had so many surgeries, half the organs in his body either weren’t there or weren’t his own. Levi left the room after about fifteen minutes and came back with plastic bags looped over both his arms. He dropped them on the disregarded table in the corner and started undoing the packaging on the food inside. Everyone immediately abandoned their posts in the circle and swarmed around the table like a horde of starving piranhas.

I staggered up from my chair and started towards the table. I figured that if I was going to be stuck here, I may as well get some free food out of it. I grabbed a store-bought cookie from the plastic container before all the good ones were taken and oatmeal raisin was all that was left. Once I’d obtained my small victory, I turned around and leaned back against the table to watch everyone else socialize while I stayed here and waited for the hour-long session to be over.

Levi caught my eye before I could even start.

I don’t know why I noticed him. He wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary, just standing around and talking to Hanji with an absconded cookie in one hand. But still, for some strange reason, I found my eyes magnetically drawn to him. Suddenly everyone else in the room seemed to fade into the background. It was just me and Levi.

And Hanji, of course. You know, since he was talking to her. No one else, though.

I tore my eyes away from Levi for a second and did a quick sweep the room. Mikasa wasn’t hovering over my shoulder anymore. I didn’t know exactly where it was that she’d gone, but it didn’t matter. As long as she was busy, she wouldn’t be kicking me to start mixing with the crowd and talking to people. And that meant I could just stand alone and watch.

I looked back at him, wondering what he was talking to Hanji about. Only... there was no Hanji anymore. Levi was turning around. He was headed towards the table.

I quickly moved to another empty corner.

Levi cut through the humming crowd of kids and started rearranging the scattered assortment of store-bought snack foods and disposable cups. Keeping my gaze fixed on him, I started inching closer. I felt kind of stupid, like a kitten creeping up on a toy mouse. But still, I kept up with the stalking. Something productive would come out of all this. I just had no idea what.

A few seconds of awkward creeping later, I was standing next to him. Not that he knew I was there. He was still fixing up the mess that the support group kids had created within seconds of the food’s arrival, muttering something under his breath about stupid fucking brats why the fuck can’t they control themselves. I inhaled deeply and opened my mouth to speak, but quickly snapped it shut again. There was no way I could talk to Levi if I had no idea what to say. I shrank back, dropping my eyes to the floor. It was like the call button situation all over again. My brain had gone completely blank except for the singular thought _Why the fuck did I think this would be a good idea?_

“Can I help you?”

“Huh?” My head snapped upright. A pair of sharp grey eyes caught mine.

 _Shit._ ****

Levi cocked his head to the side, one hand resting on the table. “I asked you a question.”

I stared blankly at Levi’s face, which was just as bored and emotionless as I remembered. My mouth was hanging open like a broken mailbox, stuttery fragments of words sticking in the back of my throat. “I... um... I-I...”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine, _don’t_ answer me.” He turned back to the table and kept fixing things up. I didn’t move. Once everything was in order again, Levi turned back to me. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“S-sorry, it’s just...” I murmured. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” ****

Levi blinked. “What?”

Realization hit me with the vague feeling of getting a door slammed in my face. There was no way he’d remember me. Nurses were probably just the same as their patients. You meet someone, you take care of them for a while, then they walk out of your life and you forget about them. That was how it had always gone for me before. There was no reason why this time should have been any different.

“I... Never mind.” I turned to walk away, heat flushing my face.

“Wait.”

I froze. Levi’s voice reverberated in my head.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” he asked.

I turned stiffly back around. Levi was watching me expectantly, his bright grey eyes fixed to mine. “Y-yeah. At least, I think so.”

I knew so. The real question was whether he did or not.

He stared intently at me for a while, his fingertips drumming against the tabletop. “You said your name is... Eren, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Eren Jaeger.”

Levi’s face was blank for a while longer. Then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t. “Wait. Eren Jaeger?”

I wasn’t sure whether he noticed my eyes lighting up or not. “Last summer? I spent a month here with a liver tumor.”

A smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. “And you needed me to hold your hand before you went into surgery. Yeah. I remember.”

The embarrassed flush returned to my face. Yep, it was Levi.

“Nice to know you’re still alive.” He leaned back on the table, watching the swarm of cancerous teenagers milling about the room. “So how have you been doing lately?”

“Fine,” I said, doing the same. “What about you?”

“I’m just fan-freaking-tastic.” He didn’t give me much more detail than that. I guess he thought I had actually been paying attention during his introduction.”So,” he mused, “Is life any different with three-fourths of a liver?”

“Not really.” It hadn’t been all that spectacular to begin with. I didn’t think my liver was making matters much worse than they already were.

He glanced over at me. “Not very talkative today, are we?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I replied. “Coming here wasn’t really my idea. It was all Mikasa’s fault.” My gaze swept through the crowd, searching for my sister. She was back in the circle, talking to Marco. The small, fragile-looking blonde kid was close by, shyly keeping his mouth shut. I’d already forgotten what his name was.

“Heh. So she’s the same as before, then,” Levi said, barely-detectable laughter in his voice.

“Yep.”

He looked at me again. “I’m guessing you’re no different, either.”

“Probably,” I said.

A second later, Hanji showed up. Levi turned away and started talking to her. So I left. It wasn’t like I’d had much to say to him anyway.

I managed to swipe one of the remaining non-oatmeal cookies from the snack collaboration before heading back to the circle. Mikasa was still with Marco, and at some point Jean had joined the party. He was staring straight past Marco as if he and my sister were the only ones in the room. Marco wasn’t saying much, only looking back and forth between the two of them while horseface ran his mouth like no tomorrow. I could tell that he was subtly trying not to laugh.

Naturally, I sat down as far from the public display of socialization as I could get.

“H-hi,” a voice stuttered behind me.

My head whipped around. A pair of wide blue eyes met with mine. My heart skipped for a second, terrified that I’d accidentally cornered myself with Annie. Then I remembered that she couldn’t speak.

“You aren’t much for conversation either, huh?” It was the fragile blonde skater kid. My body shuddered in relief.

“No, not today,” I said.

“Hm. Me neither,” the kid replied. I didn’t say anything more. After a few unresponsive seconds, he spoke up again. “I’m not very good at meeting new people.”

“Neither am I.”

“Really?”

I didn’t bother answering.

“I’m Armin,” the kid uninvitedly said. He looked at me with an awkwardly hopeful gleam in his eyes. I couldn’t help thinking _Thank god he didn’t expect me to remember his name._

“Eren,” I said with a nod.

Armin gave me a small smile. _Progress_. “So, how’d you end up here, Eren?” ****

I shifted around in my chair and glanced across the circle. “My sister made me go,” I said, nodding towards the punky-looking asian girl on the other side. “She found an ad in a coffee shop and decided that dragging me here would be a good idea.”

“Hanji asked to post some of the flyers in my grandpa’s store,” Armin replied, making a face that grew increasingly discontented as he spoke. “He told me about it and sort of just dropped me off here against my will. Said he wouldn’t pick me up until the whole hour is up.”

“Wow. Harsh.” I shifted back and folded up my legs on the chair.

“So you said you have leukemia?”

I took a vicious bite out of the cookie I’d stolen. “Yeah.”

“And that was the same thing your mom died from?”

I glared over my shoulder at him. “Yes, it was. What’s your point?”

“Nothing. Just... wow. That’s so tragic.”

I screamed internally. _Oh, god, not this again._

Armin didn’t shut up like I’d expected him to. “You know,” he said, “I can kind of relate. Or try to. I’ve kind of been through the same thi-” ****

I twisted around in the chair to face him. “There was a reason why I didn’t mention it in my introduction, you know,” I snarled.

Armin’s mouth went slack, his eyes wide and glassy. He dropped his gaze to the floor. “S-sorry...” he whimpered.

The second I saw his face, I wanted to take everything back. I didn’t know if he was aware, but he had an incredible talent for manipulating people with his own feelings. It had only taken seeing his kicked-puppy expression for a moment to make me realize what an absolute dick I was being. “No, don’t be,” I said quickly. “It was a valid question. What were you saying before?”

“Oh, um, just that...” Armin started, but he trailed off. “No. Wait. I already mentioned that in my introduction.” He dropped his gaze and ran a hand through his fluffy blonde hair. “I’m sorry. I tend to repeat myself a lot.”

“You certainly love apologizing, don’t you?” I pointed out.

Armin laughed. “Sorry.”

A smile forced its way onto my face. “There you go again.”

“So what’s your cancer status?” Armin asked, resettling himself in his chair.

“My cancer status?”

“You know, what it’s been doing lately. Mine’s been in remission for a pretty long time. I haven’t had a relapse in years. I’m still not NEC or anything, but my doctor says my prognosis is good.”

“Oh,” I said. “Mine’s... well, it’s leukemia. It’s some serious shit. Everyone knows that.”

Armin’s face fell just the slightest bit. “Oh.”

“It hasn’t been all that bad lately, though,” I went on, holding one hand up in front of me as if that would stop the tidal wave of sympathy that was sure to come crashing down. “I was caught before anything went too far. I had a liver tumor last summer, but it was removed and everything. The cancer’s in my bone marrow, though, and as far as my doctor can tell, it isn’t going to be leaving anytime soon. The most anyone can do for me at this point is make sure it doesn’t move anywhere else.”

“Oh. Okay,” Armin said. He seemed somewhat relieved. “So...”

“So?” I echoed.

Armin’s wide blue eyes stared at me for a second before dropping to the ground. “Nothing,” he said. “Just thought that you would pick up the conversation or something.”

“You’re not that good at making friends, are you?” I ventured.

Armin looked back up at me, his face tinted pink. “No,” he admitted.

My mouth quirked up into a smile. “Neither am I,” I said to my new best friend.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the meeting wasn’t torturous. Hanji and Levi commanded us back into the circle. We spent the remaining twenty minutes coming up with our own ice breaker questions and shooting them at whoever looked like they wouldn’t throttle us if we embarrassed them. In other words, Ymir, Levi and Annie stayed pretty quiet. Well, Annie stayed quiet regardless. You know, the whole no-vocal-cords thing. Armin wound up scrambling to answer all of the rapid-fire questions that the support group shot at him. Jean got snapped at by Levi when he attempted to ask Mikasa if she would date a guy with a two tone undercut. Or amber eyes. Or a horse face. Or basically anyone who fit his exact description. In retaliation she asked Jean if he would ever, under any circumstances, kiss another guy. That turned into an entire no-homo-but-probably-if-I-absolutely-had-to exposition, which ended with Jean receding into his chair and staying quiet for the rest of the meeting. It was probably the highlight of my day.

By the time four in the afternoon rolled around, the apprehension I’d felt at the beginning had all but disappeared. I still wanted to get the hell out of Trost. I wouldn’t spend another second in that hospital if someone paid me. But I wasn’t feeling ready to kill every other living organism in the room anymore.

Hanji called the end of the meeting, and the circle disassembled. Everyone was chatting as they made their way to the door. I heard a “See you Thursday” slipped into conversation every now and again. The kids all left while Levi and Hanji stayed behind to clean up the snacks and return the circle of therapeutic friendship to its former conference-room glory. I caught up with Mikasa on our way to the door.

“So,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at me.

“So?” I echoed.

“So, how was it?”

“Not horrible,” I deadpanned, turning away from her to stare straight ahead.

“Really?”

“No.”

“That’s perfect. Because we’re going again Thursday.”

I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at her. “What?”

“You heard me,” she said, not even bothering to turn around.

I sighed and slapped a palm to my forehead, digging my fingers into my bangs. Well, I guess that settled the issue of how I would be spending my entire summer.

“Hey. What are you still doing here?”

I spun around at the sound of an all-too-familiar voice. Levi was walking down the hallway towards me, carrying the grocery store bags from before that now held empty containers. “L-Levi,” I stammered.

“Yeah, it’s me. Don’t act so shocked,” he said with a shrug as he caught up to me. “So how was it, losing your support group virginity?”

I stifled a laugh. He’d always had the best way of wording things. “It wasn’t all that excruciating. Even if it was, I’ll still be coming back on Thursday,” I replied, nodding towards Mikasa, who was walking about fifty feet ahead of us.

“Nice,” he said, giving me the closest thing to a smile that a person can accomplish without actually changing their facial expression. “You know,” he added a second later, “it was a good thing that you decided to show up today.”

I turned towards him, thinking _Well, it wasn’t really me who decided._ “Really?”

“Yeah.” He shifted one of the bags further up on his arm, which I found myself staring at without realizing it.

_If you looked up toned in a dictionary, you’d probably get a picture of that._

I quickly tore my eyes away. “What makes you say that?”

“You need it,” he said, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.

I didn’t even bother trying to defend myself. It was always a lost cause when it came to Levi. “Whatever.”

“See you Thursday, brat,” he called after me as I sped up to reach Mikasa before she walked out without me.

Of all the things he could have remembered about me, it had to be that stupid nickname.

I found myself blushing in the late afternoon heat. My hand flew up to cover my burning face. I silently begged Mikasa not to turn around.

_God fucking dammit, Levi._

 

* * *

 

Neither Mikasa nor I said much on our way back home. Dad was waiting in the parking lot when we came out. We piled into the car, Mikasa riding shotgun and me in the backseat. She asked if he’d been waiting around for very long, he said no, and the conversation pretty much ended there. Fifteen minutes later, we were back in our driveway. We climbed out, Mikasa said goodbye to my dad, I made some kind of pathetic effort to do the same, and he promised to be back by nine. Then he left.

I staggered back to my room and collapsed on my bed. Strange. The support group meeting was probably the first actual activity that I’d done in weeks, but for some reason I still felt exhausted.

Mikasa walked into my room without so much as a half-assed attempt to warn me. “So, support group.”

I let out a long, melodramatic sigh. “Support group.”

She traipsed over and sat down next to me on the bed.

“So is this going to be a thing now, or...”

“Yeah, it’s a thing. Twice a week. All summer.”

I sighed again. “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.”

“What?”

“Is Dad going to be okay with driving me? I mean, I know he’s really busy all the time, and-”

“Don’t worry about Dad,” Mikasa interjected, cutting me short. “I asked him about it. He told me he can sneak out of the lab every now and then for a few minutes at a time. He’s got assistants to keep tabs on everything. It’s really no big deal.”

“Oh,” was all I said. I rolled over onto my side to face her. It seemed like everyone had known I was going to support group except for me. I hadn’t known that Dad could get out of work. I had always thought the multiple hours he’d spent in his lab office were a mandatory thing. Or maybe things were only that way after I’d been diagnosed.

Mikasa grabbed a pillow from my headboard and flopped down on her stomach. “So, was I hallucinating, or was that nurse you had last summer one of the admins of the group?”

“You mean Levi?” I said before I could stop myself.

By the time I turned to look at Mikasa, her eyes had widened in surprise and that smirk of hers was already creeping onto her face. “You remembered his name.”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I? He said it during the introductions. Didn’t you hear him?”

“I did. I didn’t think _you_ would, though.”

I willed my blood not to come rushing up to my cheeks like it always seemed to do whenever Levi came up in context. “Okay. So what if I did? He was a pretty kick-ass nurse. I was stuck in with him in Trost for a month. How could I have forgotten him?”

“You never remembered any of your other nurses.”

“Well... they weren’t Levi.”

I immediately realized my mistake. Mikasa’s smirk turned into a 100% pure shit-eating grin.

“Okay. I see how it is.” ****

“No, you don’t.” I sighed in defeat and rolled over, smothering myself in my pillows. “Fuck you, Mikasa.”

“Ew. Eren, that’s incest.”

I shut her up with a quick pillow to the face. She immediately dissolved into a fit of giggles, snatched the pillow I’d thrown and started swinging it at me. I grabbed the closest pillow that wasn’t already on the floor and shoved it at her in retaliation. We wound up starting the first pillow fight we’d had in maybe two years. I tired myself out after maybe five minutes. I collapsed back into the pillows, gasping. I wondered briefly why my body had to suck at doing what it was supposed to.

“But seriously,” Mikasa said, falling onto her back next to me. “What is the deal with you and Levi?”

“I don’t know,” I replied once I’d gotten some air back into my lungs. “He was just a cool nurse when I had him, and I guess we were sort of friends for a while? I don’t know. Everything sort of just came undone after I left. I didn’t think he’d be at the meeting today.” I looked up at her, my eyebrows pulling into a faint scowl. “Did you know about this already too?”

“No,” Mikasa said. “I didn’t know you two were so close, though.”

I let out a soft, nasal laugh. “What makes you think we were close?”

“Come on. _‘It was a good thing you decided to show up today?’_ It sounded almost like he missed you.” ****

My eyes widened and I suddenly found myself sitting bolt upright. “Wait. You heard that?”

“Uh, yeah. I was, like, forty feet in front of you. Of course I heard it.”

I could feel my blood rising up under my skin and searing my face. I took a breath and forced it back down before speaking again. Levi somehow always managed to embarrass me, even when he wasn’t there. “So why are you bringing him up now?”

“Just thought it was interesting. That’s all.” Mikasa curled up around the pillow that I’d been hitting her with a minute earlier. Her nose buried itself into her ever-present scarf.

“It is, isn’t it?” I said, lying back down next to her.

Less than ten seconds later...

“So if you go to support group, you’ll probably get to see Levi.”

I froze. “Uh... probably.”

“Do you want to see him again?”

“Do I...” The question was harder to answer than it should have been. Of course I wanted to see Levi. I wanted to know what he’d been doing, where he’d been all this time, what he’d been up to lately, and a billion other questions that would probably seem insanely prying if I tried to ask them all at once. I’d missed him. It had just taken seeing him again to make me realize that.

Then again, that day’s support group had been awkward as fuck.

“You do, don’t you?”

There Mikasa went again, being her usual perceptive-as-fuck self. I sighed for what felt like the six hundredth time that day. “Yeah, I... I guess I do.”

“So is it a deal, then?”

“Is what a deal?”

“It’s simple,” Mikasa said, sitting up and leaning over me the way she always did when she was trying to make a point while we were lying down. “You go to support group and at least make an attempt to get a life, the way I wanted you to when I signed us up for this. And every time you go, you get to see Levi again. Make sense?”

I rolled my eyes. “Mikasa, I don’t think you understand the full extent of my social disabilities.”

“No, I think I understand them perfectly. Or at least well enough to know that signing up for the YCSG isn’t as horrible an idea as you think it is.”

I buried my face in the pillows and took a deep, suffocated breath, mulling over her reasoning in my head. She was right. It did make sense. The support group was supposed to be helping me get over my social roadblocks. And Levi was part of it. It made me wonder if he was in on Mikasa’s plot too, whatever the fuck it happened to be.

I resurfaced from the pillows long enough to speak. “I don’t think that no is a viable option.”

“It isn’t.”

“You’re going to make me go, regardless of whether I want to or not.”

“I am.”

“So why are you trying to bribe me in the first place?”

“Because you need incentive.” Mikasa pushed my shoulder and rolled me onto my side to face her. “If you have a reason to go to support group, it probably won’t suck as much. I think seeing Levi twice a week isn’t half bad, for motivational purposes. So what do you say?” She smiled hopefully at me, finally showing me a facial expression that I didn’t want to punch off.

I sucked in a deep breath and let it out one more sigh, longer than what any human should be capable of. “Fine.”

Mikasa’s smile turned into a victorious grin.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is so short. I don't keep track of the individual length of these things. Next one will be considerably longer. And probably have a little more substance to it.  
> This fic hardly has any hits as it is, but I'm just going to go ahead and fish for reviews here. It would be awesome if I could hear what the few who read this think of it.  
> That's all I've got for now. I should probably sleep sometime soon.  
> See you next chapter.


	6. Cancer Titans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 12/13/14. Today is the last sequential date that any of us are probably going to see for the rest of our lives, so I had to post a chapter today.  
> I really don't know what to put in this note. I don't even know if anyone reads these things. I know I certainly don't. So I might as well get the fishing for followers and reviews out of the way now. My author blog is asking-appelia on tumblr, which currently is mostly random crap that I reblog since that's all I really have time to do at this point in my life (thanks, AP classes). I'm also tracking the tags "fic: tmiu" "fic: tmi" and "fic: the monsters inside us" just in case anyone decides they want to post something about this. I probably shouldn't go nuts asking for the reviews, since you can't get any of those without hits. I just breached 200 a few days ago. Hopefully things will get better.  
> Now it's time to race to get this chapter posted before midnight.

 

 

Going to the second meeting didn’t scare me nearly as much as going to the first did.

Thursday afternoon was almost an exact replay of Tuesday. Dad dropped Mikasa and me off in front of Trost Regional. She reminded him that the meeting would end at four, and everybody gave a half-assed goodbye since we’d be seeing each other again in an hour. We both stumbled out of the car and watched him drive back to his lab, then started towards the sliding glass doors at the entrance. This time I was no longer itching to bolt in the other direction. That wasn’t to say that I had warmed up to this whole group therapy thing after one session. That couldn’t have been further from thr truth. I just... didn’t hate it nearly as much as I used to.

Mikasa led me down the same corridor through the radiology ward and into the small cluster of conference rooms where 4A was waiting for us with open arms. The loud, steady hum of conversation filled the air inside. As far as I could tell, nothing had changed here since the first meeting. It was all the same kids, same chairs in the same circle, same two LPNs hanging out in the corner and talking about us behind our backs. I slunk over to the table that had once again been shoved into the corner. They’d put the snacks out at the beginning of the meeting this time instead of holding off and using it as a reward for participating. Maybe they expected us to willingly talk about our problems now. That could have meant that the LPNs were either geniuses or completely clueless when it came to the workings of the teenage brain.

“H-Hi, Eren.”

That stutter. I had heard it before.

I spun around. Armin was standing a few feet behind me, one hand holding a cup of store-bought popcorn, the other shoved nervously into the pocket of his shorts. “Hey,” I said, grabbing a popcorn cup of my own.

“So... how’s life?” he asked.

“Boring,” I deadpanned in response, picking a few grains out of my cup and tossing them into my mouth.

“Mine too.” Armin shrugged and dropped his eyes to the floor. “I guess we really don’t do much outside of here, do we?”

“Nope.”

“What about during the year? Don’t you have school and stuff?”

“No,” I said factually. “My dad withdrew me during my first year of high school.”

“Why?”

“Spent too much time in the hospital, wasn’t really any point in trying to make up for lost time. I’ve been homeschooled ever since.”

“Wow. That’s weird”

“What’s weird?”

“I get homeschooled too. My grandpa withdrew me in first grade.”

I stopped munching and stared at him, my eyes wide. “First grade? Seriously?”

Armin nodded. “Yep. Remember my introduction from yesterday? I was diagnosed when I was really little. I’d been missing out on school for years, but I was always able to catch up. Eventually, though, I started getting penalties for all the absences, and the principal told us that if I kept missing days I’d have to be held back, so he just took me out and enrolled me in a program. It was probably a better idea than trying to keep me in regular school. I probably would’ve lost it if I had to do the first grade over. Everything was way too easy as it was. I can’t even imagine having to learn what I already knew all over again.”

“Too easy?” I said, confused. “So, what, did you end up skipping first grade in homeschool or something?”

Armin shrugged. “Um... sort of, I guess.”

“How far have you gotten?” I asked, my curiosity spurred.

“Well...” Armin said, dropping his eyes again and flashing a sheepish grin. “Not to brag or anything, but... when I was ten, and I was finally healthy enough to start going to school again, I didn’t bother, because... well, it turned out I was way ahead of where I should have been.”

“Wait, wait, let me get this straight... you skipped ahead while you were getting homeschooled?”

He nodded, his eyes bright.

“How far?” I demanded enthusiastically.

“I was supposed to be going into fifth grade, but I was learning at a seventh grade math and science level, and my english was eighth. So, technically, I was two or three grades ahead of where I should have been. I probably could have gone into middle school then, but, well... just look at me.”

“Okay,” I said, my eyes already fixed on him. “What exactly am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Just look,” Armin replied, stretching his arms out and flicking his hands back towards himself like he was directing my gaze up and down his tiny body. “Is it not obvious enough or something?”

“Is what not obvious? Am I supposed to be looking for some kind of deformity? I really don’t...” I trailed off and shrugged.

“Eren, I am the physical equivalent of an anorexic midget. I was even more anorexic and midgety back then. Also, if you haven’t guessed, I’m a textbook bullying target. I was already tiny compared to kids my own age. If I tried to get into a middle school, I would have have been shark bait.”

A second of staring longer, and suddenly it all made sense. The corners of my mouth twitched upward. “Yeah, it was probably a good idea to stick with the homeschooling.”

Armin laughed. “That’s what I thought.”

“Alright, circle up, people! We’ve got a schedule here!”

I didn’t have to look towards the source to know whose voice was shouting over the din of socializing teens. Levi had a very distinct sound.

In seconds, everybody had gathered into the chair circle. Hanji and Levi were sitting side by side. I dropped into the first empty chair I saw that wasn’t next to or across from them. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle an entire meeting trapped under that piercing grey gaze of his. Not until I’d gotten over my social awkwardness, anyway.

I swear, sitting directly next to Jean was completely unintentional.

By the time I glanced over to my left and realized my mistake, it was far too late. Hanji started tapping her clipboard and kickstarted the meeting.

“Alright, everyone. Before we get started, is there anything that anyone wants to ask that we didn’t cover in the last meeting?”

It wasn’t too awkward of a question to begin with. However, it became that way within a few minutes. Most of the questions were cancer-related. It made sense, what with this being a support group for cancer victims and everything. For the most part, people wanted to know about how other people had been diagnosed and how well they’d been doing lately. It turned out that Reiner had been a huge athlete all his life and wound up getting sun poisoning during his freshman year of high school which quickly went bad. Bertolt had been diagnosed a few months after finishing his growth spurt and over the course of three years had several of his bones replaced with prosthetics. When Ymir was asked what she meant when she said she had never gone into total remission, she explained that she had been treated but still couldn’t keep weight on and got fatigue and muscle pain every now and again. Marco was an open book about whatever the group asked him. Armin’s long remission earned him a considerable number of dirty looks from the rest of the group. Krista once again refused to talk about her tragic family history, which no one should have been asking about in the first place, since the mere mention of the subject brought tears to her eyes. Connie asked Sasha how she stayed so skinny, then got smacked over the back of the head. And then...

“Mikasa, are you single?”

...and then Jean happened. ****

Mikasa stared across the circle at him, her face blank but her eyes livid. I had mistakenly sat down further away from her than I should have.

“Yes,” she deadpanned. A self-satisfied grin spread across Jean’s horse I mean face. Then Mikasa spoke up again. “Now can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Do you always hit on people in your therapy groups?”

A collective “ooooooooh” rippled through the circle. Jean’s smile dropped so fast I was surprised it didn’t fall off his reddening face and shatter on the floor. Mikasa stared at him, a spiteful smirk turning up on her lips. I almost missed the amused flicker in Levi’s eyes that broke through his bored expression for a split second.

“I... Um... I-I...” Jean stammered. A grin broke out on my face and a laugh slipped through before I could stop it.

Suddenly horse-face had spun around and locked his eyes on me. “Jaeger.”

My grin disappeared. “Yes?”

“I’ve got a question for you.”

A shot of dread seeped into my veins. It was as if I had known what he was going to ask before he even opened his mouth.

“Why didn’t you bring up your mom in your introduction?”

I swallowed. My heart knocked at my ribs like an overenthusiastic door-to-door salesman.

_Fuck._ ****

Jean shot me a smug smile. I wanted to claw at his face until my fingernails scraped it off. “Well?” he prodded. “Aren’t you going to answer?”

“It’s...” I started, trying to ignore the feeling of rage burning in my circulatory system. “It’s a sensitive subject.”

“But Mikasa brought it up. She’s your sister.”

“Adopted,” I spat.

“Doesn’t matter. We’re still talking about the same mom, right?”

“Yeah. And I told you why. I just don’t like talking about it.”

Marco elbowed him in the ribs. “Jean, stop it,” he whispered.

Jean didn’t stop. “I know, but I’m asking why.”

“It doesn’t matter why.”

“Of course it does. This is a support group. We’re supposed to be talking about this sort of thing.” Jean shifted forward in his seat and leaned towards me as if getting in my face would make me more inclined to answer. “I’m trying to help you, Eren.”

“Okay, no,” I snapped, pushing myself forward to face him. “No, you are not trying to help me. You’re being an insensitive douche and trying to jam your stupid, oversized nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“Eren, calm down,” Mikasa hissed.

“Yeah. Listen to your sister, Jaeger.”

“Jean,” Marco murmured warningly.

“You mean your girlfriend? Oh wait, she’s not interested!”

Jean’s face flushed red. “That was ages ago, Jaeger. No one thinks it’s funny anymore!”

“Then why do you keep bringing it up? If it hasn’t occurred to you yet, this is a therapy group, not a goddamn speed-dating service!”

“Okay, that’s enough. Both of you, shut your mouths and keep them shut. Your question privileges have been revoked.”

My head spun towards the shout. The bored, lifeless look on Levi’s face didn’t match the authoritative annoyance in his voice. He lifted one hand and extended a finger towards me. “You. Eren.”

My face heated up as if his eyes were UV lights. “Yes?”

“Switch seats with Connie. It’s probably best if you two stay separated.”

I nodded and obeyed him without another word. I heard Jean murmur something that sounded like “Wow. Oversensitive, much?” behind my back, which was cut short by a sharp “Hey. I said mouths shut.” from Levi.

The rest of the question session went pretty smoothly. Then the meeting turned into talking about things that people wanted to share of their own free will. I kept my mouth shut like Levi had commanded and glared at Jean the entire time.

The hour rolled by even more slowly than it had on Tuesday. When we were finally dragging down to the last few minutes, Hanji tapped her clipboard extra loud to get the circle’s attention. “Hey, guys. We’re running out of time and I’ve got an assignment for the new recruits that I wanted to give before the meeting ends.”

“An assignment? I thought it was summer vacation,” Jean muttered, earning himself a piercing glare from Levi. He snapped his mouth shut that very second.

“It’s just to get you initiated,” Reiner cut in as if he’d forgotten Levi’s orders from earlier. “Lets the group get to know you better. You’re not getting graded for it or anything.”

Hanji stopped tapping her pen and pointed it towards him. “Exactly. Anyhow, these are just open-ended questions, no length requirements or anything, and you are allowed to write whatever you want. We don’t judge content here. Sometimes they’re for the whole group, sometimes just for first-time members. It also gives us a sort of kickstarter topic for the meetings. Think of this as your hazing.” She glanced down at her clipboard. “Alright. Today’s question is... how do you think of your cancer?” She looked back up at the group. “So, my idea behind this came from something a pediatric patient told me a while back.”

_Great. We’re getting questions inspired by something some child who’s probably dead now said while they were dying._

“She told me that she thought of her disease as a dragon and her doctor was a knight who was trying to rescue her from it. And, of course, I thought it was adorable at the time, but it really got me thinking...”

_I wonder who that kid’s doctor was._

“I feel like everyone has some metaphorical way of envisioning their disease, whether they are aware of it or not. It changes from person to person, and sometimes that affects the way that they cope with it, which is why I decided to bring it up today. All you have to do is write up a response, print it out and bring it in to read out loud next the next time we meet. And we know, we know, public speaking is scary and all that, but it’s okay. Remember, this is a support group.” I caught her looking sympathetically at Armin. “I promise you we don’t judge here.

“And if you can’t come up with anything, fine,” Levi added. “But we’ll know the difference if you just didn’t bother with the assignment.”

_Yeah_ , I thought to myself. _Sure you will._

 

* * *

 

I hadn’t wanted to join that stupid support group. I had never asked for social obligations that I didn’t need or another reason to be visiting Trost Regional when I was already sick of the godforsaken place. I had never asked to be given a writing assignment when I already had an endless stream of those coming from my homeschooling program. Obviously I had no intention of doing it. Hanji had said that the assignment wasn’t 100% mandatory anyway.

So why the fuck was I sitting in front of my laptop and staring at a blank Word document?

My tutor had come in that day. He went over my grades for the past month of my work in the online classroom, we figured out what I needed to work at a little more, then we had spent a few hours in the kitchen, gathered around the table with my notes and textbooks scattered everywhere. He’d given me a packet of documents from the Gilded Age to write a DBQ essay on. He said it would be due the next time we met. I had no idea when that would be, so I had gotten started as soon as possible. Then I had finished. And then things had just sort of spiraled out of my control and progressed on their own.

I folded my legs up underneath me and leaned forward on my knees, staring at the blank white pixels in front of me. The tiny black line of the cursor blinked steadily on and off, begging me to stop screwing around and start typing something. Footsteps echoed through the house as Mikasa scampered around downstairs, doing whatever the fuck she does while I’m busy not being busy at all. I hardly noticed the difference when they started to get louder.

“Hey. What are you up to?”

I looked up from my irritatingly blank support group assignment. Mikasa was leaning into my room, her hands clinging to the doorframe and her feet on tiptoe out in the hallway.“Hm?” I mumbled in response.

My sister walked into my room without waiting for an invitation and leaned over my shoulder. “Why do you have a Word document open?”

I glanced back and forth between her and my laptop. “Just... writing something.”

“Oh,” she said. And then... “Wait a second. Are you actually doing that thing they assigned to us in support group?”

I craned my neck around to look at her and cocked my eyebrows. “Are you?”

“No. I’m not the one with cancer. How would I have an abstract vision of something I don’t even have personal experience in?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. You could write about me. Or Mom, maybe?”

“No. It’s not personal enough,” she said, flopping down behind me on the bed and shaking the mattress. We heard the distant hum and gravelly scrape of a car pulling into the driveway. “Hey. Sounds like Dad’s home.”

“For once,” I scoffed, turning back to my blank document.

“Well, good luck with writing about your abstract visions of cancer. I really didn’t think you had it in you.” She straightened up and turned towards the door.

I looked up at her retreating back. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to say hi,” she said, her voice clipped. It sounded as if I should have been thinking the same thing.

“Okay,” I replied. “I’ll be down later.”

We both knew I was lying.

Mikasa walked out of my room just as the front door latch clicked and the door swung open. I returned to staring at my blank assignment, my twisted-together fingers pressed to my lips, doing nothing but think. The more I contemplated it, the more I realized that I didn’t really think about my cancer in any abstract way. I just thought it was horrible. There was never really anything else to it.

I started thinking back to when I was ten. The ten I had been before I was diagnosed, when it had been my mother who had leukemia, not me. Everything always seems different when you’re younger. I tried to remember if there had ever been any huge, fantastical imaginings that I had made up about my mom and her disease. As far as I knew, there weren’t any. At least, none that made any sense. The only thing I had ever imagined about her cancer was her being able to beat it. I had come up with about a million different situations where my mom would live and everything would be okay. Where her tumors started shrinking, or someone came up with a surgery to replace every ounce of bone marrow in her body, or even where her body started attacking the cancer itself. I’d come up with so many of them. I had an entire arsenal of scenarios in my head that I was wishing harder than I had ever wished before would happen. The worse she got, the more I created. I must have thought that if I came up with enough situations, one of them would eventually come true. But none of them did. I just watched her get sicker and sicker, watched the cancer leaching off of her like an angry parasite, eating away at her more and more until finally there was nothing left-

I froze. My eyes widened. Cancer. It eats people. That’s what it does.

That was it.

I slammed my hands down on the keyboard and started typing.

 

* * *

 

 

By the time the next support group meeting came around, I was prepared.

A pattern had started to develop around it. My dad dropped me and Mikasa off. We walked in. I grabbed some food. Armin somehow found his way over to me. We talked until the LPNs told us to get into the circle.

“Okay. Did all of our new recruits remember their assignments from the last meeting?”

A few wary gazes shifted around the circle. A face or two flushed with shame. Annie stared straight ahead, looking just as angsty and bored as she had every time I’d seen her before.

“Um, Hanji? If it helps, I wrote something to get everyone started.”

I looked around the circle for the source of the voice. Marco had shifted forward in his seat, a folded-up slip of paper in one hand.

Hanji brightened up. “Aw, you didn’t have to. Go ahead. Show ‘em how it’s done.”

“Okay,” Marco said with a shy smile. He unfolded the paper and looked the words over once, then again for good measure. “This might not be all that great, but I wrote it in about half an hour, so just bear with me, okay?”

“Just shut up and read, Shakespeare,” Jean said, giving Marco’s shoulder a friendly nudge.

A slight flush lit up behind his freckles and he looked back down at the paper. “Alright. Here goes...”

“I know that so many people have said this before me, and I probably won’t be the last one to put it this way. But there really isn’t a better way to put it. When I think of cancer, I think of a battle. We are the soldiers, and our disease is the enemy. We don’t really know what its objective is. Maybe it doesn’t even have one. But we all do our best to fight it off anyway and survive as long as we can. The fight lasts longer for some than for others. Sometimes we come out alive, and sometimes we are lost in the battle. And for us, that’s all it really is: a battle. The war itself is ongoing. There is no definite cure. Cancer is not something that can be defeated just yet. But people are still being diagnosed. Soldiers are still being sent to the war front to do battle with this relentless disease. For now, there’s no way to tell who will be the victor. All we can do is keep fighting. One day, all of this will finally be resolved. And the soldiers just need to stick it out until that day comes.”

He folded the paper back up with a relieved smile, his cheeks turned a shade brighter. I was surprised the circle didn’t stand up and start a round of applause. I’d heard the “cancer is a battle” speech at least a thousand times over, but never like that. I had no idea Marco was so eloquent.

“Fantastic start, Marco,” Hanji said, her voice breathless. “Alright. Who thinks they can follow that up?” She looked expectantly around the circle, an eager smile on her face.

Krista was the next to stand up. It was kind of weird. It seemed that the only people who had done the assignment were the ones who hadn’t had to do it at all.

Krista’s speech compared cancer to a black hole. No one knows why it had to evolve the way it did. Its only purpose is as a destructive force, like the implosion in the core of a dead star. It doesn’t have to be the way it is, but it is regardless. And once it appears, it’s only a matter of time before it destroys everything around it. And once those things are gone, they never come back.

I wondered if this was Krista’s attempt at justifying her cancer-free presence in the group.

Sasha was the first newcomer to stand up. She described her cancer as an incinerator, something that did its best to burn up everything that was thrown at it. I wasn’t sure if she was talking about her cancer or the whacked-out digestive system it had left her with.

Ymir hadn’t written anything. She didn’t bother trying to elaborate.

Armin volunteered next. He quickly explained for the third time that he’d been diagnosed at a younger age than anyone else in support group and his description might sound stupid, but that was because he’d come up with it when he was seven and didn’t have a better imagination. He went on to speed-read a paragraph about a purple blob monster that lived in the side of his neck, where a tumor had once appeared in a lymph node there. He crumpled up the document in his hands the second he had finished reading, dug his fingers into his thick blonde bangs and murmured “That was so embarrassing” as soon as he thought no one was listening anymore.

Judging by Annie’s attitude so far, I was sure she hadn’t been one of the poor souls who had actually done the assignment. To say I was surprised when she dug her phone out of her pocket and handed it over to Reiner would have been a massive understatement.

Reiner started reading from the tiny screen in his hand. “I don’t really have an abstract vision of my cancer. This is mainly because it barely even exists anymore. After my surgery, my symptoms went into remission and haven’t relapsed since. But if I had to compare my cancer to anything, I’d compare it to a strip of duct tape that was stuck over my mouth. I’d always been kind of quiet, and I didn’t think I’d be losing much when my doctor told me the only way to get rid of my disease would be to remove my vocal cords. It turned out that I would miss speaking a lot more than I thought I would. I don’t miss not being able to talk to my friends, since it was something I hadn’t done very much in the first place, but I quickly found out that I needed my voice for a lot of things I hadn’t even bothered thinking about when I agreed to get it cut out. Now I can’t even ask my dad to get me something from the grocery store without taking the time to write it down somewhere. People think that just because I can’t speak, that means they don’t need to listen to me anymore. Communicating has become nothing but an inconvenience for me. I never realized exactly how much I needed my voice until it was gone. My cancer has silenced me more than I ever imagined it would.”

The entire support group went almost as silent as Annie. Reiner gave his script another once-over and let out a long exhale. “Wow. That was...”

No one offered anything up to help him finish the sentence. He looked over Bertolt to the little blonde sitting two chairs to his left. She leaned over and stared expressionlessly back, then extended a hand to take her phone. Reiner dropped it gingerly into her palm.

“Don’t worry, Annie,” he said. “We’re here to listen to you.” He looked expectantly around at the circle. “Right, guys?”

The group immediately sprang to life.

“Yeah, of course.”

“We totally are.”

“We’re here for you.”

“We’re listening, Annie.”

“It’s a support group, what else is it for?”

Annie didn’t seem to give a shit either way. ****

“Who’s up next?” Hanji asked, glancing around the circle.

I knew the answer was me, but I wasn’t about to go announcing it to the world. I tugged a folded-up piece of printer paper out of my pocket and started working at the creases. “I... uh, wrote something...”

Hanji’s eyes brightened up behind her glasses and she pointed her pen in my direction. “Eren!”

_No backing out of this now._ I took a deep breath and started to read. ****

“I’ve heard people describe cancer in a lot of ways. They always say that it’s a noble fight, and the people who get diagnosed are heroes, and that spending hours in the hospital getting bombarded by chemicals and radiation is actually a worthwhile way for someone to spend their life. But the truth is, it’s all a lie. There is no fighting when it comes to this disease. Cancer is a monster. It’s huge, and relentless, and almost indestructible. It eats people from the inside out. Thousands of people are lost to it every year, and there is nothing anyone is able to do. A surefire cure doesn’t exist, and the treatment options are almost worse than the disease itself. While we’re all struggling along, cancer feeds off of us without a care in the world, eating away at its victims until there is nothing left. Once cancer is there, it never leaves. It’s a threat that hangs over you for your entire life. You can never escape. The cancer will always be there, waiting to devour you as soon as it gets the chance.”

The second I stopped reading, I immediately wished I hadn’t started in the first place.

The entire support group was staring at me. The room had gone silent, save for the nervous throbbing in my chest. Everyone’s face had gone rigid with shock. Except Levi’s. His face was just rigid. Hanji had stopped her clipboard tapping. Armin was staring at me as if he were relieved that his speech was no longer the worst. Krista’s eyes were huge and glassy. _At least someone here gets it_ , I thought. ****

I was the one to break the silence. I owed the circle that much, since I was the one who had created it in the first place. “Sorry about that. I’m really not any good at writing, and I guess I was kind of angry when I came up with the metaphor-”

“No, no,” Hanji said quietly. “That’s perfect. That’s exactly what we were looking for.”

“R-really?” I stuttered.

“Of course,” she replied. “This was an assignment to express yourself. And... that’s how you do it, I guess.”

Reiner pitched in. “Believe it or not, that’s actually not the darkest submission we’ve ever gotten.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Then what was?”

“Well, there was this one kid who joined the first year who wrote-”

“Please, Reiner. I thought we agreed never to bring this up again,” Bertolt said.

“What? It was a cool story.”

“Then we’ll explain it to him later,” Marco cut in. He turned to me, his soft brown eyes fixing on me. “That was cool, Eren. I never looked at it that way before.”

“Because you’re not a cynic, Marco,” Jean added. Marco rolled his eyes and gave Jean a soft kick in the ankle.

“Dark stuff is something we’re sort of used to,” Connie said. “I mean, did you miss the black hole speech and the duct tape thing? That’s what cancer is. It’s dark. Cancer sucks, and there’s not really any other way to put it.”

“He’s right,” Marco agreed. “And that’s just how you see it. That was the point of the assignment, right?” He glanced over to Hanji for confirmation.

Levi ended up being the one to respond. “Exactly.”

 

* * *

 

The rest of circle time went by without a hitch. We all talked about what we thought of the compositions we’d heard and the different ways we all pictured the disease, and Armin had to explain the theory behind the purple neck blob. (He’d seen images of lymphoma under a microscope and decided that was what his cancer looked like.) 4:00 seemed to come around more quickly than it had at the first two meetings. Before I knew it, we were disseminating from the circle and going our separate ways.

I blindly followed Mikasa to the sliding glass doors of the cancer center exit. I didn’t even register the faint sound of footsteps behind us.

“Hey, brat. Nice work today.”

I spun around. Once again, Levi had managed to sneak up on me. “You really think so?”

“I’m assuming you don’t,” he said, his short little legs somehow carrying him so fast that he had to slow down to keep pace with me.

“No,” I replied, jamming my hands into the pockets of my shorts. “I feel like such a dick for writing what I did. It’s like I just told the entire support group that they’re going to die and there’s nothing they can do about it.”

Levi’s next words came out of nowhere. “Some of them probably are.”

I would have stopped dead if Mikasa weren’t power walking on ahead of us. My head whipped around towards Levi. “What?”

“Some of the kids in the group are probably going to die,” he repeated, his voice just as flat as it had been the first time he’d said it. His face somehow retained its bored, level expression. “It’s a cancer support group. Almost every single person who showed up in that conference room today has a potentially lifelong disease. Odds are, at least one or two of them are going to end up going terminal. I’ve seen kids die their way out of YCSG before. It happens every year. No matter how you slice it, the cake is always the same.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t find the words to respond. My head swiveled forward again and I stared straight ahead at Mikasa. We were almost to the exit. Something in me quietly hoped that my dad would show up late that day.

“What is it now?” Levi asked. “Was that somehow even darker than your little hopelessness speech?”

“No,” I said. “I just... I haven’t thought of that in a while. That this is a support group for dying kids to help them deal with the fact that they’re dying.”

“No truer words have been spoken, brat,” he said, his eyes glinting in the sinking sunlight that streamed through the huge window panes at the cancer center entrance.

The front doors slid open in front of Mikasa. I picked up my pace and sprinted ahead, hoping they wouldn’t slide shut again before I reached them. I looked out into the parking lot. My dad’s car was nowhere to be seen.

“So... undefeatable cancer monsters?”

I crossed through the door and spun around. I wasn’t aware that Levi had still been following me.

I glanced over towards Mikasa. She’d stopped at the edge of the sidewalk. She must have noticed the absence of our dad’s silver Toyota in the parking lot. I watched her turn around and make her way towards one of the random benches that occasionally present themselves for people to sit on while waiting for things outside a hospital. Her eyes caught mine for a split second, just to let me know that she’d seen me.

I turned back to Levi. “Yeah,” I said, shrugging. “No clue where the idea came from, but... there it was.”

“It kind of makes me wonder...” he murmured, staring out at the parking lot as if it were a beautiful sunset. “Where exactly did you learn to be so grim?”

“I guess I learn from the best.”

He let out a noise somewhere between a laugh and an unusually quiet sneeze. “Well played, brat.”

I glanced over at Mikasa again. She’d taken her phone out of her bag and was now fixated on it, her fingers tapping furiously at the screen. She stopped and locked the screen, then started up again a minute later. Probably texting a friend or something. I tried not to think about what a bang-up job Mikasa did of unintentionally reminding me of my spectacular lack of a social life and failed miserably.

Levi’s voice dragged my thoughts out of their pit of despair. “So, about what I said earlier...”

“You mean about helping the dying to die easier?” I asked, my voice sounding automated.

“Yeah,” he said. I cast a sideways glance at him and his grey eyes held mine for longer than I had ever intended them to. “Look, I didn’t mean to sound like a killjoy or anything, and I just want to clarify something. Cancer kills people. It’s a fact. Hell, it’s a goddamn statistic. But what I said was just referencing things that have happened before. I wasn’t forecasting the future for this year or anything.”

“You sounded pretty sure of yourself when you said it.”

“I know. That’s because I was speaking from experience. But I’m not saying that the same thing is going to happen this year. I’m just trying to think realistically. Some of the kids in the support group might end up dying, or they might not. There’s really no way to know until it actually happens.”

A small smile twitched at the corners of my mouth. “So it’s like Schroedinger’s support group.”

“Basically.”

A memory from last summer’s surgery episode resurfaced somewhere in the minute of silence that followed.

“If that’s what you really believe, then why did you tell me that before the operation?” I asked distantly.

Levi blinked, his eyes clouding with confusion. “Tell you what?”

“That I would be okay,” I said. “I mean, if the surgery hadn’t happened yet, then there was no way of really knowing, right?”

“That was different,” Levi said, turning to stare out at the parking lot again. “First of all, when a patient is having a panic attack, a good rule of thumb to stick to is not to tell them there’s a chance they could die. You already seemed to be completely aware of that, so I kept my mouth shut on the subject. Secondly, Dr. Erwin has dealt with surgeries way more complicated than yours. In the two years I’ve spent working for the guy, he’s taught me a few different bits and pieces about tumor locations. Your cancer was relatively isolated and could be removed without your needing an entirely new liver. He’d figured that out ages before the surgery. So I’d have to say the outcome was a little more definite than normal for you.”

“And that was why you ‘just knew’?”

“Precisely, Sherlock,” he deadpanned.

Things went quiet again after that. Levi and I leaned up against the wall, staring out at the cars, while Mikasa sat nearby on the bench, silently reminding me that she had friends to text and I didn’t. A spark realization had started to sputter in the back of my mind. But when I turned to ask Levi why he had followed me outside, I was cut short by the sound of tires scraping over concrete. I looked back to see my dad’s Highlander pulling into the parking lot. “Finally,” I murmured under my breath.

“You just can’t wait to get rid of me, can you, brat?” Levi snipped. His stock-still face wouldn’t let me know whether it was a joke or not.

I risked the assumption that it was and shrugged him off. “If that’s me, then I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.”

Levi rolled his eyes. “Whatever. See you around, brat.”

With that, he spun on his heel and headed back inside.

My dad pulled up alongside the curb by the entrance. Mikasa stuck her phone back into her messenger bag and stood up. I followed her, and we climbed into the car. The drive home was nothing more than a long, drawn-out awkward silence that didn’t end until we were dropped off in the driveway of our house.

 

* * *

 

That night, I somehow found myself in the backyard and lying sprawled out on our trampoline.

I didn’t know why we even still owned the stupid thing. It had been fun at one point in my life. But that had been a long time ago, when I still thought that cursing was actually a bad thing and kissing scenes in movies were gross. And when I didn’t have cancer. And still had a mom. We’d bought it just a little bit before we adopted Mikasa. The first few times I’d spent jumping around on it were pretty lonely. I had never had many friends, not even when I was still enrolled in a normal school. Then I had Mikasa. I remember that for a while I had thought that she had only wanted to come home with us because we had a trampoline. Then after that, we invited friends over and we would all sit up there and hang out, making up games and trying to do stupid stunts without any real fear of getting hurt.

But then things changed. I changed. More accurately, my cancer changed me. Soon, I was too weak and tired to spend all that much time bouncing around on the thing. So I just stopped. I hadn’t even gone near the trampoline in what must have been years.

I hadn’t been expecting to hear the back door creak open and slam shut again. But I still wasn’t startled. I heard the sound of bare feet padding across the pseudo-wood planks of the deck, then the grass. Mikasa landed haphazardly next to me, the rubber mat dipping under her weight and tilting me in her direction.

“There you are,” she said. “What are you doing out here?”

“Nothing, really,” I mumbled. The sun was finally finishing up its rounds and sinking below the horizon. It must have been almost nine. Dad still wasn’t home yet.

“Then why did you come out to the trampoline to nothing when you could have nothinged just as easily inside?”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know. It was a nice day and I wanted to enjoy it before the sun went down?”

“Yeah, sure you did.” Mikasa sprawled herself out next to me and stared up at the darkening sky. “I was looking for you.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” She rolled over onto her side to look at me. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“What was it?”

“Support group.”

I let out a long, growling sigh. “I thought we talked about that enough today. You know, at the actual support group meeting.”

“I’m not asking about the stuff we talked about at the meeting today. It’s about the group itself.”

“Haven’t we been over this before?” I asked disdainfully.

“Yes,” Mikasa said. “But I felt like I should keep up with it. Just in case anything changes.”

“Okay...” I mumbled, replaying that day’s meeting in my head. “I don’t exactly hate it, but I’m also not thrilled that it’s something I do. So I guess that makes me pretty indifferent.”

“Hm. It’s an improvement over hating it, I guess.”

I stared blankly up at the sky for a while longer. I remembered the feeling of the woven black rubber holding me up. It had been a long time since I had felt it last.

“We used to have a lot of fun on this thing, didn’t we?” I said.

“Yeah, we did,” Mikasa absently replied.

Things went quiet for a while longer.

“You know, if you’d been really adamant about saying no, I wouldn’t have made you go.”

A miniscule jolt ran through my body as if I had been disrupted in the middle of falling asleep. “What?” I said numbly.

“I wouldn’t have forced you to join the support group if you really hadn’t wanted to.”

I sat up and looked down at Mikasa’s blank, daydreaming face. “Then what was all that about drugging me and bringing me to the first meeting in the trunk of dad’s car for?”

“Hey, you drew that conclusion yourself. I didn’t do anything but agree with you.”

“Then why did you spend... what was it? Twenty minutes convincing me that it wasn’t a complete atrocity of an idea?”

“I just wanted to make sure you had the facts before you made your decision. I knew you’d fight me about it at first, but if you kept on fighting I would have stopped. And you didn’t. So here we are.”

I dropped back down onto the trampoline. “Well, don’t I feel stupid now.”

It was Mikasa’s turn to loom over me. “What makes you say that?” she asked.

“I...” I opened my mouth and drew in a sharp inhale to start berating her with reasons why I never had any motive for going other than her. I suddenly realized I didn’t have any. In that instant, every single argument that would have seemed perfectly viable a week ago had fallen flat.

“I... don’t know.”

Whether I liked it or not, something in me had wanted to go to that support group. And now...

“I didn’t think so,” Mikasa murmured.

I took a deep breath and stared up at the sky. The sun had disappeared, and the vivid bluish-grey was fading quickly into black. The color reminded me of something. I wasn’t entirely sure what.

“So what were you and Levi talking about?”

I looked over at Mikasa. “You mean while we were waiting outside?”

“Yeah. It seemed pretty important.”

“I thought you were listening.”

“Come on, Eren. What kind of prying snitch do you take me for?”

I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes. “It wasn’t much. Just philosophy and cancer stuff.”

“Certainly seems like the subject of the day, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. It does.”

I have no idea how long we spent lying out on the trampoline. The sky had long since gone dark. I probably would have fallen asleep out there if it weren’t for the sound of my dad’s car pulling into the driveway letting me know I had to go back inside.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is all for this chapter. I hope the title fits. It was either this, or Schroedinger's Support Group, and I figured this one was better since the last aspect is only ever mentioned once. Besides, that's a pretty good title, and I want to save it to see if it fits another chapter later on.  
> Feel free to go back and look at those plugs I stuck into the first author's note.  
> See you next chapter.


	7. Getting A Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, everybody. I'm five days late.  
> It's been a while since the last update. Why don't we go ahead and post one today? That'll be your present from me this year. A new chapter for all of your feels.  
> I hope you guys are liking this story so far. Just so you know, it's barely even begun. The whole fanfiction, as far as I've written it, has reached twelve chapters by now, and I'm not even halfway through. I like the reviews I've gotten for it so far, even though my ao3 hits hadn't even breached 300 the last time I checked. So go ahead and keep leaving those reviews. I love hearing what you guys think.  
> Once again, gonna put in these shameless tumblr plugs just in case someone feels like following through with them. My author blog is asking-appelia, and if anyone feels like posting anything about this fic, if you would please tag it "fic: tmiu" "fic: tmi" or "fic: the mosters inside us," that would be nice. I'm giving you guys a bit of a selection there, so you can pick whatever you think sounds best.  
> I wanted to wish you guys a happy nondenominational winter holiday. So... merry Festivus, everyone. It's late, but it doesn't matter. It's the thought that counts. Right? RIGHT????  
> Update: I've started working on the story again, and I realized that I screwed up the order of a few things. So THERE I FIXED IT. Whoever finds the change wins the fantastic nothing prize.  
> Never mind. Story time.

 

 

Thursday brought on the next meeting with the support group that I was surprisingly going to of my own free will.

Mikasa had been working in her library volunteer position that morning with a gathering of other Shiganshina students, so one of the seniors offered to give us a ride. I couldn’t help feeling relieved. I would be saved another self-inflicted guilt trip for making my dad miss out on work. And for forcing him to spend time in close proximity to me. For some reason I always felt like he never wanted to be around me. Or maybe I was the one who didn’t want to be around him. The result was the same either way.

No one had gone missing from support group yet. Conference room 4A still held twelve people, all of them looking just as alive as the last time I’d seen them. I guessed Levi’s predictions hadn’t come true just yet. Schroedinger’s Support Group was still just as lively and un-dying as ever.

To change things up, I looked for Armin instead of letting him search the room for me. I found him standing in the corner, an oatmeal cookie in one hand and his cell phone in the other. And standing in front of him was...

What the fuck was Annie doing with him?

I came to a dead stop and decided to watch for a while. The two of them were standing in complete silence, the both of them fixated on their phones. At first I wasn’t sure if they were standing close together on purpose or if they had been playing on their phones and somehow wandered into each other’s orbit. Then Annie’s eyes suddenly widened. A smile broke out on her face and her shoulders began shaking. She looked like she could have been laughing, although I didn’t hear any noises coming from her. I shuddered internally. The whole permanent-silence thing could be really creepy sometimes.

Her eyes flicked up from her phone and fixed on Armin’s face. He did the same, flashing her a small, shy smile. So they were having a conversation. It probably would have been a bad idea to get into the middle of it.

“Hey, Eren. Good to see you again.”

My head whipped around to look over my shoulder. A pair of soft brown eyes met with mine. “Marco,” I said absently.

“Polo,” he replied with a laugh.

After a quick glance around to confirm that there was no Jean lurking nearby, I turned around to face him. “Does this look like a swimming pool to you?” I asked.

He smiled warmly at me. “It’s a recurring joke. You’ll get used to it.”

“Okay,” I murmured, shifting my weight around on my feet.

“Hey, about the thing from last meeting, with the darkest submission we’ve ever gotten for the open-ended assignments...”

“Yeah. You said you were going to explain that, right?” I had completely forgotten about his promise from the last meeting. In fact, until he brought it up, that conversation had just about ceased to exist to me. I made a mental note to work on my memory of past conversations. If I was going to make friends the way Mikasa was subliminally pushing me to, it was a skill I was going to need.

“That was the idea,” he said. “In the second year the group was operating, there was this one kid. I can’t remember his name offhand, but he had pancreatic cancer, like me. He was pretty bad. He’d been diagnosed late, and his doctor had given him only a few months to live, even though they were still trying to treat him and everything else. He was probably the worst case anyone here has ever seen. Not just cancerwise, I mean. His attitude was probably worse than his disease ever was. He spent the entire time talking about how he had already accepted the fact that he was going to die, and he didn’t need to go to group therapy to come to terms with it, and a whole bunch of other crap that everyone else got tired of pretty quickly. I don’t think the support group did anything to help him. Or maybe he just didn’t let it help, since, you know, group therapy is sort of a mutual thing.”

I nodded. Didn’t that sound familiar. “What about the composition?”

“It wasn’t just the first one,” Marco explained. “It was all of them. Every single submission he made was about death. It was never anything but death with him. It was like that was all he could think about, like he didn’t see his life going in any other direction. I guess that was why no one was surprised when he stopped showing up.”

I felt a block of ice settling inside of me. “Did he...”

“Yeah,” Marco replied listlessly. His eyes had gone dark. It was kind of scary, coming from someone who seemed so positive as he always did. “He was kind of setting himself up for it, though. But I still think sometimes... was he really being a cynic, or was he just trying to see things the way they really were?”

“It sounds like he was just being a dick,” I said. I needed to say something. Anything to get that horrible look off Marco’s face. I felt around in the cluttered shelf space of my mind for my store of conversation starters that didn’t seem to exist. “So... this is your fourth year with the group, right?”

Marco brightened up immediately. It was only a tiny change, but it was something. “Yeah. I’ve been getting treated at Trost since I was twelve. I was pretty friendly with all the nurses here, and one of them just brought up the support group while I was in for a treatment a few years ago. I joined pretty much without a second thought.”

So he didn’t even have to get dragged into this like I did. He had just jumped in all on his own. “Why was that?”

“Don’t know,” Marco said with a shrug. “I guess I just wanted to get to know some new people. Get help, give it to others. Make some more friends, you know?”

“You really didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who needs help making friends.”

Marco laughed, the same way that he did when we first started talking. It was nice to see him back to normal. “You don’t even know,” he replied. “I was diagnosed in fifth grade. I wound up losing contact with almost all of my friends from school in the first year. Well, except for Jean.” He paused for a second, as if he were taking a second to think something over. “You know, Jean was actually the only one who’s stayed friends with me since then.” He shrugged, as if the thought didn’t matter as much as I suddenly felt it did. “That’s the sign of a lasting friendship, I guess.”

“What, that it doesn’t get split up by cancer?”

“Or withdrawing from school and spending half your time together in the hospital. It kind of surprised me, how far out of his way he was willing to go just to hang out with me.” He glanced at something over my shoulder. I turned around and followed his gaze. Jean and Mikasa were standing by the snack table across the room. He was leaning casually back with one elbow balanced on the table as if it were a bar and he was buying my sister a drink. She didn’t seem to be paying him any attention. I genuinely hoped she wasn’t.

I scoffed. “He just doesn’t know when to quit, does he?”

“No, Jean’s just a little... strong-willed.” Marco had such a nice way of saying _he’s a stubborn asshole._

“Strong-willed. I’ll remember that.”

 

* * *

 

The LPNs gathered us into the circle not much later. We kicked off the meeting by asking a few more questions. It seemed that the group still wasn’t quite finished getting to know each other. After that, we bounced a conversation around the circle in popcorn fashion, letting it go in whatever direction it would. Someone pointed out that Bertolt had worn shorts to the meeting, and his bone-replacement scars were showing. There were a ton of them. He quickly explained that his osteosarcoma had started around his ankles and he’d had almost all of the bones in both legs replaced with prosthetic pieces, as well as one of his hips and a few vertebrae. He had still been growing when the first ones had been put in, so a few of the pieces were a little disproportionate, but not so much that they wouldn’t work properly. All it meant was that he’d be a little unsteady on his feet for the rest of his life. His legs sported an impressive collection of red, ropey lines where at some point they had been cut open, the bones inside replaced and the membranes stitched back together. The longer I stared, the more I thought they looked like the skin had been peeled away and left a line of exposed muscle underneath. I spent the rest of the meeting on-and-off staring at Bertolt’s legs.

After 4:00 finally came around and the circle broke apart, I spotted Armin milling around in the corner by the snack table. He had his phone out again, but there was no Annie to be seen (or heard). I weaved through the crowd and made my way over to him.

“Hey,” I said. I glanced down to see one of his hands resting next to the cookie containers that had been the YCSG’s food contribution for the day. He reached in and grabbed one, despite the obvious fact that there was nothing but oatmeal raisin left.

Armin looked up from his phone, blinking in surprise. “Huh? Oh, hey, Eren.”

“You actually eat those?” I asked, nodding down at the cookies.

“Yeah. Why not?” he replied, picking one out and nibbling at the edges in a way that made him look kind of like a blonde, blue-eyed mouse.

“They’re nasty. No one ever takes them.”

“I know. I never really cared though. I think they’re okay.” He glanced down at the brownish mass of oats and raisins in his hand. “They’re always the last ones left, too. It kind of makes you feel bad for them, doesn’t it?”

“Not really. I’ve never gotten emotionally attached to a box of cookies before.”

Armin looked up at me and sighed. “Don’t tell me you no longer want to be friends with me because I like to eat the cookies that no one else takes.”

I sucked in a deep breath and made a concerned face. “I don’t know, Armin. That’s getting pretty close to crossing the line, there.”

The annoyance on his face dissolved into a smile and he shoved the remainder of the cookie into his mouth. “Oh, look. The problem’s gone now,” he mumbled around the crumbs. “Can we be friends again?”

“Dork,” I laughed, turning to walk towards the exit with him at my heels. Mikasa met up with us at the door.

“Hey. Dad just texted me. Some specimens grew out of their petri dishes and they need to organize a cleanup.”

I set my teeth and sighed. “So he’s going to be late again?”

“Yep,” she confirmed. Her eyes wandered from my face to the awkward blonde twig of a guy standing next to me. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Armin said shyly.

“You’re... Armin, right?”

“Yeah. And you’re Mikasa?”

“Does anyone else in the support group look like they’d have a Japanese name?”

Armin let slip a nervous laugh. “Heh. No. I-I mean, I guess not.”

Mikasa gave him a faint smile. “Well, it’s nice to know you remembered.”

I cut in. “How could he not remember? Jean’s been proposing to you at every meeting since we joined.”

Mikasa’s smile dropped. “Eren, I thought we agreed to avoid talking about that at all costs.”

“Tell Jean that.”

Mikasa exhaled heavily and flicked a hand at me. “Nope. I am done. This conversation is over.”

Armin and I hung back as she walked out ahead of us. “I’ll be outside waiting for you two to catch up,” she shouted over her shoulder.

Armin stared after her for a minute, then turned to look at me, his eyebrows so raised that they were hiding under his bangs. “Is she always like that?”

“Pretty much,” I said with a shrug. “I’m that way too, most of the time. I guess it’s just our way of showing affection or something.”

Armin’s eyebrows returned to visibility. “Oh. Okay.”

“Oi, brats. If you keep hanging around here any longer, you’re going to have to clean up with us.”

The both of us spun around at the sound of Levi’s all-too-familiar voice. At some point he had snuck up behind us without making a sound, despite the plastic bags looped over both his arms that should have been rustling together and giving us at least a subtle warning that he was there. I glanced around the room and was struck by the fact that Armin and I were the only ones left.

“S-Sorry, Levi, we’ll get going,” Armin stuttered, grabbing my arm and making a beeline for the hallway.

“Good choice.” Levi turned away from us and started back towards the table. I opened my mouth to make some sort of witty response, but Armin started towing me out the door before I could say a single word.

I still managed to shout “See you next week, nurseman!” at the top of my lungs before getting dragged out into the hallway, 4A’s door falling shut behind us.

Once we’d put a whole three corridors between us and the conference room, Armin slowed down and turned to me, a questioning look on his face. “Nurseman?”

“Long story,” I said, my face starting to heat up. “He was my nurse last summer when I had to get a liver tumor treated. It was sort of a one-time thing, really. I just said something stupid to him once, but I’m pretty sure he still remembers it.”

“You really think he’d remember something you said to him once? And that long ago?”

“I don’t really think Levi is the type that forgets things easily.”

The hallways grew gradually brighter as we walked. Soon we were standing in front of the glass-plated entryway of the cancer center. Mikasa was waiting for us outside, just as she said she’d be.

“Hey,” I said with a casual wave. “Miss us?”

“Not really. I was too busy enjoying the show.” I noticed the signature _seriously?_ look on Mikasa’s face as she nodded towards the multitude of cars parked in the lot. ****

“The show?” I asked, my gaze following her directions and landing on a cheap, broken-in Neon parked a few rows back from the entrance. Two figures were leaned up against it, pressed flush against each other and appearing conjoined at the mouth. After a minute of staring I recognized them as Bertolt and Reiner. “Hold on a second. Are they... together or something?”

“Yeah,” Armin replied.

“For how long?” Mikasa asked.

“Two years. They started going out after their first year in the support group.”

I suddenly found my eyes glued to their explicit PDA. The longer I stared, the more awkward feelings came surging up inside me. I had no idea why I was having them in the first place. It was just a couple of guys making out against a car. No big deal. Nothing to get excited about. For a brief second, their mouths separated. Bertolt whispered something, and Reiner responded just as quietly, his mouth imitating the motions that his boyfriend’s had made. Then Bertolt’s head fell forward and they were once again going at it as if the world were ending around them.

“What are they saying?” I wondered out loud.

“They have this whole ‘always’ thing,” Armin explained. I blinked, not realizing that the question had strayed outside of my head, and was finally able to tear my eyes away from the makeout session and fix them on his face instead. “I’ve seen it up close. It was... It was an accident,” he added, looking slightly embarrassed. “Reiner explained it to me. They say it to each other all the time. It’s supposed to mean they’ll always love each other, they’ll always be there for each other, that kind of thing.” ****

“Hm,” Mikasa hummed in acknowledgement, her eyes still inseparably glued to Reiner and Bertolt’s whispery, tongue-ridden display. “That’s pretty sweet, actually.”

“Yeah, I guess it is,” I agreed, trying to resist the uncontrollable urge to turn back and keep watching them stick their tongues down each others’ throats. “Sometimes you just need something to be for always. Especially when you don’t know how long always is going to last.”

Suddenly everyone’s eyes had switched focus from the everlasting-cancerous-love display to me. I felt my face burst into flames. _Way to darken the mood, Eren. ****_

“You’re kind of right, I guess,” Armin said, turning back to the beaten-up Neon. The two lovebirds had finally separated and were climbing into the car, Reiner to the driver’s side and Bertolt to the passenger seat. “That was actually what Bertolt had been thinking when he had first asked Reiner out. He’d had two bone replacements since joining the group, and everyone was worried the spreading would continue, so he figured he would just give it a shot while he still had the chance, and... well, you see how that turned out.”

I watched as the Neon pulled out of its parking space and rolled out into the road before turning to Armin again. “How do you know all of this?”

“I’ve been talking to Reiner a lot,” he said. “He’s actually really friendly. He gave me his phone number at the first meeting. He texts me all the time. He must have a remedy for severe social awkwardness or something that he wanted to give me.”

“Do you think he has anything for me?” I asked.

Mikasa smirked. “I don’t think social awkwardness and an aversion to life itself are the same thing.”

“Hey, I’m not averse to life. I just don’t have one.”

“You could have one if you wanted one.”

I rolled my eyes. “Excuses, excuses.”

“Well what were you planning to do all summer before I signed us up for YCSG?”

I cast Mikasa a sharp sideways glance. “Hey, it’s not my fault. I was in kind of a dark place.”

She cocked her head to the side. “You _were_?”

“I’m getting out of it. Slowly.” ****

The mood started to lighten as the minutes passed us by while we were leaning up against the wall and staring out at the parking lot. Armin’s grandpa hardly ever picked him up on time, and our dad had at least warned us that he would be running late that day. We were stuck outside for almost half an hour. But for some reason, it didn’t feel like it was that long. The minutes ticked past in quick succession instead of dragging painstakingly by. I never realized exactly how much faster time went when I wasn’t suffering through it.

Somewhere in the middle of a philosophical discussion on the importance of Hot Topic as a religion or something like that, a white Accord straight out of 1996 came rolling out of the street and into the parking lot. Armin stopped laughing and tensed up, watching the car as it drove steadily closer to us. “That’s my grandpa. I have to get going.”

“Oh. Okay,” I said, feeling more than a little disappointed. Somewhere deep down, I’d wanted both our rides home to show up at the same time for the sole purpose of not having to stand there without him. “I’ll see you Tuesday, then.”

“See you.” He took a few leisurely steps toward the curb as the car rolled up alongside it. A second before he reached for the handle, Armin spun back around. “Wait. I can’t believe I forgot. I wanted to ask you something.”

“What is it?” I asked, brightening up at the prospect of a few extra Armin minutes.

He slipped a hand into his pocket and dug out his cell phone. “Can I have your cell number?”

My brain stuttered as if he’d been speaking in C++. “What?” I asked dumbly.

“I just wanted to know if you would give me your number. You know, to text and stuff. If you want to.” Armin dropped his gaze and stared at his phone. “I’ve gotten phone numbers from a few of the YCSG members, and since you’d been talking to me lately, I just thought-”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure, it’s fine,” I blurted out, hoping desperately that I didn’t sound too much like I lived under a rock. Although I sort of did. I hadn’t given anyone my phone number in years.

Armin looked back up at me and smiled. “Really? You would?”

“Yeah. Here, give me your phone.”

Armin obediently handed it over. I punched my digits into the keypad. “Just text me later and let me know it’s you, okay?” I said.

“Mind giving him my number too?” Mikasa cut in. She looked pointedly at Armin, the traces from the earlier smiles still on her face. “Eren doesn’t always answer his phone. And if you really need someone to talk to...”

Armin stared at her as if she’d gotten down on one knee and proposed. “That would be great. Here. I’ll open up another-”

“No, it’s alright. I’ve got it.” I opened up another contact slot and added Mikasa to his contact list. It wasn’t all that impressive. The only numbers he had stored were those of a few family members. I noticed that Marco, Annie and Reiner had recently been added to the list. I gave his phone back to him, and he turned away, a smile lighting up his face.

“Thank you so much!” he borderline squealed, pulling the passenger door of the Accord open. “I’ll text you guys soon, okay?”

“Okay.”

“See you next week, Armin.”

“See you.” He pulled the door shut and we watched his grandpa’s car peel away from the curb and out into the road.

 

* * *

 

True to his word, Armin texted me less than an hour later. I saved his number into my contact list and in the process took note of the fact that mine was even more pitiful than his. The only numbers programmed into my phone were mine, my dad’s and Mikasa’s. I also had Dr. Erwin’s office on my list, but I had never used it. It was really only there in case of an emergency.

My new best (correction: only) friend texted me again the next day. Our conversation didn’t last all that long. I gave up on trying to be social after about twenty minutes and retreated back into the magical realm of Netflix. Sure enough, Armin texted me again the day after. This time, I actually held up a conversation with him while watching my usual endless chain of Supernatural episodes. It required a considerable amount less effort than it had the first few times. I thought I was making some serious improvement in my socialization skills. Then he sent me this.

**Armin: Are u busy right now?** ****

I poised my thumbs over the screen, ready to type a short-and-to-the-point “yes” and continue on my quest to find out what the hell the Winchesters would be doing about the always-impending apocalypse. I stopped just short of pressing send. After a quick evaluation of my life so far, I reconsidered my response.

**Me: No.**

My phone went off again a minute later.

**Armin: Cool. Is ur dad home?**

**Me: Y r u askin**

**Armin: Bc I wanted to come over maybe?**

I stared down at my phone, not entirely sure if I was reading correctly. Was he serious? Someone actually wanted to come visit me? How long had it been since someone had asked to come over to my house?

**Me: You mean now**

**Me: Today**

**Armin: Not like RIGHT NOW, but sometime soon i guess. Why? Are u doing work or home alone or something?**

I looked up from my phone and listened to the silence that seemed to be echoing through the house. My dad had left for work before I had even woken up that morning. Mikasa had gone out to her library job hours earlier. So yes, I was home alone. But that didn’t mean anyone had to know I had done anything other than hide in my room all day with my headphones on and my laptop acting as the only light source.

**Me: Yeah sure u can. When do u want to come over?**

**Armin: Is today okay?**

**Me: You think i have anything else to do?**

**Armin: Ok lol. Today then. You said u live in Shiganshina, right?**

**Me: Yea. Wbu?**

**Armin: WEIRD. I’m looking up your house on Mapquest. You are like 5 minutes away from me.**

**Me: What dude how do you live so close to me????**

**Armin: Idk. I don’t get out much. :l**

**Me: Neither do I lol. See you in a bit.**

 

* * *

 

Six and a half minutes later, the distant vibrations of an outdated car engine began to travel through the framework of the house. I ripped my headphones off of my ears and jumped up from my bed. I scrambled around my room for a few seconds, yanking the shades up and letting the afternoon sunlight in, kicking dirty clothes under the bed, and especially looking myself over and making sure I was presentable. At least I’d remembered to change out of my pajamas that day. If I ever had to face anyone in a shitty t-shirt and boxers again, I didn’t think I would survive the encounter. Not that Armin seemed to be the kind to mind all that much about appearances. But I still didn’t want him to have to see me looking like I’d just narrowly escaped an awkward morning-after experience.

A minute after the vibrations died down, there was a knock at the door. It was so soft that I could barely hear it from upstairs. I dashed out of my semi-organized room and down the stairs into the entryway. There was a small, scrawny figure standing outside, his eyes hidden under his blonde coconut shell of hair as he stared down at his cell phone. My own cell buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t bother answering it and pulled the door open, plastering a smile onto my face.

“Hey, Armin!” I shouted as cheerfully as I could.

Armin jumped as if my greeting had punched him in the face. He stared at me for a second, wide-eyed and blank like a deer in the headlights, before a smile broke out on his face. “Eren! Hi!”

I glanced over his shoulder to see a familiar white Accord pulling away from the curb and driving off down the street. _Armin’s grandpa abandoning him again. Great._ ****

“Great to see you. Come in. It’s like a fucking sauna out here.” I took a step back, pulling the door with me and holding it open. He walked through and I pushed the door closed behind him, shutting the stifling early-July heat outside.

“Thanks for letting me come over,” he said, looking around the hallway like a rescue kitten discovering its new home.

“Don’t mention it,” I replied. “It’s no big deal. I really didn’t have anything else to do today. I’m still a little confused as to what the sudden desire to visit me was about, though.”

Armin made a face and shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Oh. That was my grandpa’s fault, really.”

“Your grandpa?”

“Yeah. I was texting you, and he asked me who it was, and I just mentioned that I’d met this guy in support group and maybe we should hang out sometime soon, then...” Armin sighed and shrugged his bony shoulders. “He just told me to ask you if I could come over. I think he’s trying to push me to be more social.”

Well, that explained tough-love approach regarding his methods of dropping Armin off and picking him up. I laughed under my breath. “Don’t we all know what that’s like.”

“Heh. Yeah,” Armin murmured as he followed me into the kitchen. He looked around the room again, an inquisitive look in his eyes. “Weird. It’s so quiet around here.”

“Yeah, it is. My dad’s out at work, and Mikasa is at the library, so I’m just stuck here by myself for the day.”

Suddenly Armin turned to me, his eyes widened into sky-blue frisbees. “Wait. You mean we’re alone?”

“Yeah. Why do you ask?”

Worry crumpled at the edges of his face. “A-are you sure that your dad’s going to be okay with this?”

I shook my head and sighed dismissively. I’d already thought of this ages ago. “My dad probably won’t even be home until it gets dark. As long as you’re out of the house by then, I’m pretty sure he won’t care.” Not that I had been planning on telling him in the first place. What he didn’t know had never hurt him before, and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t start hurting him anytime soon.

“And what about Mikasa?”

Alright, there was a curveball I hadn’t even taken into consideration. “Um... Mikasa...”

Armin drew his eyebrows into a frown and sighed. “See? I told you.”

“Mikasa probably won’t care either,” I said flatly. “She’ll probably just be happy that I did something other than stream Netflix today.” There. That sounded like at least a somewhat viable possibility.

Armin’s face finally came out of its worried expression. “Okay. As long as my grandpa doesn’t ask to meet your dad afterwards, I guess it’ll be okay.”

“Right. Besides, it’s not like we’ll be getting high or hiring hookers or anything.”

Armin sighed and stuck out his lower lip like a disappointed six-year-old. “So I guess this means I brought my weed stash and list of phone sex hotlines for nothing.”

My mouth dropped open. “Armin!”

His pout disappeared instantly and he looked bewilderedly up at me. “What? Did you think I was actually serious?”

“N-no, I just... What?” I shouldn’t have been all that surprised. And I wasn’t, really. I just found it a little hard to believe the guy who could probably pass for a twelve-year-old was capable of making perverted jokes, let alone ones that were actually funny.

“Hey, it’s not the first time it’s happened. Once I told one of the people in my classes that I had a disorder that prevented me from growing at a normal rate and that I was actually almost thirty. He thought I was being completely serious and almost went to the professor about it.”

“What? No way.”

Armin giggled. “Yes way. I wasn’t even trying to fool him or anything! It just happened!”

“Wait a second,” I said. “What classes? I thought you were homeschooled.”

“I am,” he replied. “Well... I was. I finished up the program and got my diploma back in April. I signed up for a few classes at Rose Community College. They have sessions that run over the summer, and my grandpa told me that I should sign up. I have three of them, four days a week.”

“What classes are you taking?”

“Mostly English stuff. Literature analysis, art history 101 and creative writing. I’m thinking of taking a music theory course when the fall semester starts.”

“Why music theory?”

“I don’t know. It’s just always sounded like something I would be interested in.”

“So you’re into music?”

“Yeah. A little.” Armin gave me a shameful little smile. “I got into songwriting after I went into remission. I’ve still got all of the notebooks, even though basically everything I wrote was crap. Then I started teaching myself to play the guitar a little over a year ago. What about you?”

“I’m into music too, but more in the listening way than the composing,” I said with a shrug. “I like it, but I can’t do it myself. You get what I mean, right?”

“Yeah. Completely,” he responded, nodding. “So what do you listen to?”

“Specifically? I don’t really know. It’s mostly alternative and rock, some electronic, indie, sometimes dubstep... it’s just a lot of different stuff.”

“Any artists you like?”

“Oh. Let me think. There’s... Three Days Grace, Skillet, Mayday Parade, Coldplay...”

“You listen to Coldplay?”

“Yeah. Is that a problem or something?”

“No, just... why?”

“They have a unique composition style, and I like their song lyrics. Most of them are a little deeper than what you usually see in current music.”

“Oh,” I said. “Anything else?”

He rattled off a list of bands, some of which I recognized. “Wow. I guess we’re into a lot of the same stuff.”

“I guess we are. Musicwise, anyway.”

A smile twitched the corner of my mouth. “Hey, if you’re interested, I have my laptop open upstairs. I can show you my library if you want.”

Armin’s eyes lit up. “You would do that?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“That would be awesome.” A giddy smile had spread across his face once again.

We went upstairs to my room and gathered around my laptop, which I had conveniently forgotten to turn off. We spent a while shuffling through my iTunes library and flipping out over songs that we both happened to have in common. Armin leafed through his iPod and showed me the better part of his own collection. Eventually the laptop escapades strayed from iTunes and landed us somewhere in the weird part of Youtube. We spent at least another hour with my laptop trying to make ourselves forget a series of Gmod animations that had quickly gone from funny to brain-stabbing. Once our brains had been sufficiently numbed, I suggested taking my laptop into the basement, hooking it up to the tv and streaming something on Netflix. Somehow my days always wound up returning me to that lovely website.

We travelled the two flights of stairs down to the basement and plugged an HDMI cable into my laptop’s side. After a long, indecisive while spent scrolling through the instant streaming options, we finally settled on _Heathers_ , since there really wasn’t anything else decent available that we could agree on.

The front door swung open and slammed shut in the middle of the strip croquet scene.

“Eren, I’m back! What are you doing?”

I froze in place. “Shit.” ****

Armin glanced over at me from the other side of the couch. “What is it?”

“Mikasa,” I murmured, looking frantically up at the basement stairs. “I never told her you were coming over.” I heard faint footsteps above us behind the dialogue of the movie. She was standing right between the entryway and the kitchen, and the basement door was directly in front of her. If she came down...

Armin spun around toward me, his eyes wide. “Oh god. Are we in trouble now?” he whimpered. “I got you in trouble, didn’t I?”

“No, no, it’s okay. I’ll handle this.” I sincerely hoped he didn’t hear me mumble “She’s going to flip the fuck out” under my breath a moment later.

“Is she really?” His face crumpled.

_Great. He did hear me._

“Oh, god. I’m sorry. I am so sorry, Eren. I shouldn’t have asked to come over. I just-”

“Armin,” I snapped. He fell silent and stared at me in the flickering half-light of the tv. “It’s okay. Really.”

He shifted uncomfortably on the couch and sighed. “Okay. If you say so.”

I climbed over the back of the couch and landed feet-first on the carpet, leaving Armin to continue watching _Heathers_ in peace. The basement door swung open by the time I reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Eren! There you are!” Mikasa’s silhouette said. “I was looking all over the house for you. What are you doing down here?”

“Watching a movie,” I replied casually, making my way up the stairs towards her. I glanced back at the couch and Armin lit up by the bluish glow. “With Armin,” I added quietly.

Mikasa looked taken aback. “What?”

“Don’t freak out okay?” I implored, holding my hands out in front of me.

“Why would I-”

“Armin came over today,” I explained, the words coming out so fast they fell over each other on the way. “I wasn’t planning on it, we were texting and he just asked me. I know I should have asked dad first, and we’re not supposed to have people over without anyone here and everything else, but he just asked and I didn’t want to say no, and now he’s in the basement, and I swear to god we haven’t done anything-”

“Whoa, whoa, Eren, slow down,” Mikasa commanded.

“But Mikasa-”

“Eren. Shut up.”

I did as I was told and shut up. My sister pressed her fingers to her forehead and sighed. “Okay. So let me get this straight. You invited Armin over to the house?”

“Well, he asked first. I just said yes.”

“And he’s here.”

“Yes.”

“Right now.”

“Yeah.”

“In the basement.”

“Uh-huh.”

Mikasa fixed me with a level stare and exhaled slowly. “Well, then.”

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “I know, I should have asked if it was okay or at least told you or Dad that he was coming over-”

“You know what? Whatever.”

I froze, my mouth hanging open and my vocal cords caught in mid-sentence. “W-what?”

“Whatever,” Mikasa repeated, flicking a hair indifferently out of her face. “I don’t care if he just came over. I don’t care if you were on the internet this entire time or jacking off or doing cocaine or whatever. You didn’t burn the house down, the both of you are still in one piece, and as long as we get him out of here before Dad shows up, no one has to know.”

“S-so it’s okay if he stays?” I stuttered in disbelief.

“Yeah,” she replied with a shrug. “Just not too long. We should probably get him out of here before dinner.”

I nodded in silent agreement. We both knew Dad wouldn’t be home until long after then.

After the issues were resolved, the both of us headed into the basement. Armin hadn’t moved an inch from his spot on the couch. He spun around at the sound of our footsteps pounding down the stairs.

“H-hi, Mikasa,” he stuttered, giving my sister a shy smile.

“Hey,” Mikasa responded, traipsing across the room and vaulting over the back of the couch. She landed gracefully on the cushions and glanced at the tv screen. “What are you watching? _Heathers_?”

Armin seemed to melt in relief. “Yeah, actually. It was the only good thing they had to stream today.”

“Awesome. I freakin’ love this movie.” Mikasa curled up in the corner between the couch back and armrest. I tried to walk past her without blocking too much of the screen, but still she grabbed me around the waist and tugged me backwards. My legs gave out like the toothpicks they were and I crashed ass-first into the couch, letting out an awkward noise of surprise and earning myself a laugh from Armin. I snuggled into the cushions between the two of them and we finished the rest of _Heathers_ in partial silence, interspersed with comments about what the fuck was going on with teens in the 80s. ****

After J.D.’s bomb went off and the credits began rolling, Mikasa took out her cell phone and checked the time. It was almost 5 in the afternoon. We still had about a solid two hours before anyone had to go anywhere, so we didn’t move. The three of us just stayed in the basement, sprawled out to varying degrees on the couch. Most of the time was spent talking, bouncing back and forth between random subjects, ranging in deepness from how hot thigh-high socks are to what the fuck happened with all of our parents. As it turned out, Armin’s parents had met in a hospital support group, kind of like the one all of us had just joined. His dad had been diagnosed with lymphoma at 22, the same cancer that Armin’s grandma had died from before he was born, and his mom was 21 with a five-year-old breast cancer diagnosis. Things led to other things, and two years later they were married and Armin came into existence. But, sure enough, things went to shit three years later. Armin’s mom had a reoccurrence, and the cells were exponentially more aggressive than before. So she died. He hadn’t said anything more on the subject. He was diagnosed with lymphoma when he was six, and at around the same time his dad’s condition was starting to worsen. He died a year later. Armin explained that his dad had supposedly been living on borrowed time. His cancer had progressed much further than his son’s had by the time he was diagnosed. Even though they were stages apart, it still sometimes felt like his dad had traded his own life for his son’s. That was how he had described it. He’d been living with his cancer-free grandpa ever since.

We quickly steered the conversation towards something that was much less dark. First it was Armin’s purple blob cancer, then the other metaphorical renderings of terminal illness, then the YCSG in general. Then suddenly...

“So how have things been with you and Levi?”

I would have been sitting up pin-straight in shock if I weren’t hanging upside down on the couch with my feet over the back and my head dangling off the seat. Still, a small jolt of surprise ran through my body, threatening to send me sliding headfirst towards the floor.

“L-Levi?” I asked dumbly.

“Yeah,” Mikasa said, refolding her legs underneath her. “Have you been talking to him at the meetings or anything?”

At least I could blame the upside-down hanging for the blood that was rushing rapidly to my face. “Yeah. A little.”

“What about?”

“Nothing much, really,” I said, crunching my stomach and pulling myself upright. “Usually just the support group, what we’ve been doing lately, that kind of thing.”

“And what has he been doing lately?”

“Just the usual. LPN work, that sort of thing." It wasn't a total lie. I was just stating the obvious, since I actually had no fucking idea what else Levi did with his life. 

“Nothing out of the ordinary, then.”

“Nah. Not that he’s told me, anyway.”

Armin readjusted on the couch so his head rested next to my legs and his were hanging over the armrest. “What was it like having Levi as a nurse?”

“Weird,” I deadpanned.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing about him made any sense,” I explained, ignoring Armin’s raised eyebrows. “When I first met him, he was a total ass. He snapped at me all the time and made fun of me and called me a brat more times than I have even bothered to count. But then every now and again he would suddenly... soften up? I don’t even know. It was like one second he hated me, and then the next he was my best friend. And it never stopped. Not until...”

I suddenly realized where the story was headed and let my sentence drop dead, unfinished. I hadn’t told anyone about what had happened that day. And I wasn’t sure that I would ever want to.

“Until...” Armin prompted, his voice quiet.

I stared at the floor and shook my head. “Nothing.”

“No, not nothing. Something,” Mikasa murmured, inching closer to me. “What was it?”

“I already told you. It was nothing.”

“No, it wasn’t. Come on. The cycle never stopped until...”

“Do you guys really want to know that badly?”

The both of them stared expectantly at me. I felt the tips of my ears starting to heat up as if someone were holding a match nearby.

“It wasn’t anything important. Really.”

The staring didn’t stop.

I sighed, feeling as though every inch of my skin were on fire. “Okay, fine.” I took a deep breath and murmured the rest. “I might have held his hand before going into surgery. And... maybe told him about my deepest fears in a moment of desperation. But that was it. I got released a few days later and that was it.”

The room was quiet for a moment before Armin spoke up. “I didn’t know you guys were so close.”

“That’s the thing,” I said, picking absently at a loose thread in the couch. “We aren’t.”

“You never told me that that happened,” Mikasa said.

I dropped my gaze back to the carpet. “I didn’t tell anyone that it happened. It was just kind of embarrassing and I never saw the point in saying anything about it. It’s not like I was ever planning to talk to him again after I got released.”

“But you did anyway,” Armin added quietly.

“Yeah,” I quipped, flopping over sideways next to him. “And now everything’s fucking awkward.”

“Why do you think it’s awkward?” Mikasa asked. She grabbed my legs and pulled them into her lap, straightening me out over the couch.

“Because of what happened and all the things I told him, and then how we just stopped talking as if that summer in the hospital had never happened at all. And now he’s back, and...” I sighed and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. “I just don’t know what to say to him.”

Armin gave me a little hum of acknowledgement. “Well, you don’t have to go mentioning that right away. Maybe if you guys hung out a little more you could reconnect or something.”

I strained my eyes to look over at him. “What makes you think we want to reconnect?”

“I don’t know,” he said, the cushion shaking as he shrugged his shoulders. “It just sounds like you guys were really close.”

“Yeah. Were.”

The three of us fell silent for another minute. The conversation was almost as sporadic as the one we’d had during _Heathers_ now.

“Why would he want to hang out with me, anyway?” I rhetorically asked.

Mikasa curled up, squishing my feet in her lap. “What makes you say that?”

“He’s a college student. And a nurse. Unlike me, he actually had a life outside the support group. Besides, I don’t even know how old the guy is. And something tells me that it’s not exactly his dream come true to waste his life hanging out with some random cancer-stricken teenager.”

“But that’s what he does for his job,” Armin pointed out.

“That’s the difference,” I deadpanned. “He gets paid to do it.”

 

* * *

 

 

Half an hour later, Mikasa checked the time on her phone again and figured that our dad would be home in an hour or two. We would have to get Armin out of the house before he showed up if we wanted to keep everything quiet. Armin called his grandpa, and Mikasa gave him some bullshit excuse about how there was a chemical accident in the lab and he’d had to run out to take care of it, just in case grandpa wanted to come in and meet the elusive Mr. Jaeger.

Twenty minutes later, he pulled up in his shitty Accord in front of the house. We said goodbye to Armin and promised to talk more at the next support group meeting. Then Mikasa and I went about hiding the evidence that anyone other than the two of us had been in the house that day. Luckily, Armin wasn’t very much of a messy houseguest and there wasn’t a lot of evidence that we had to cover up. The basement was relatively clean, and my room was always a disaster area, regardless of whether I had friends over or not. So when Dad finally came home, no questions were asked.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you know, I am fully aware of how often I compare Armin to small, furry animals. Don't ask me how that works. It just does. And yes, I am projecting my own music tastes onto the characters. Mary-Sue alert. I'm so sorry.  
> I hope everyone approves of their taste in TV shows and movies as well.  
> SO that's what these rapscallions have been up to so far. What's in store next? Here's a hint: it probably wouldn't happen in a real-life cancer story. Or maybe it would and I'm just a terrible shut-in who likes to live vicariously through fictional characters. I'll let you decide when the next chapter is out. Which shouldn't be too long from now, since I just finished my other story. So now it's going to be all cancer, all the time. Okay? Okay.  
> See you next chapter.


	8. Invitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with my first update after the new year. Yay.  
> I'm almost at 500 hits on ao3, and it only took me two months to get there. Impressive, right?  
> No, actually, that's pretty sad and I'm lying to myself.  
> Now that The October Story is finished, I'll finally be able to focus all of my fanfic efforts on this one. So, hopefully from this point onward, I'll be able to post a new chapter more than once every two months. If it were that infrequent, it would take a rather long time for the entire story to get posted, wouldn't it?  
> A little disclaimer: Like I said in the final note of the last chapter, this one might be a little unrealistic in terms of what people are able to do when coping with something as debilitating as what most of the characters in this story have to deal with. But apparently Hazel Grace was well enough for international travel, and I think that she was a little worse off than Eren currently is. I just hope I'm not messing with the accuracy too much.  
> I don't know what else to write, so it's time for plugs again. My tumblr is asking-appelia (still a work in progress, I'm sorry) and this story's tags are "fic: tmiu" "fic: the monsters inside us" and i've decided to forget about "fic: tmi" since I recently figured out that can stand for other fictions that have nothing to do with this. *cough*The Mortal Instruments*cough* Also if you want, feel free to leave a review on this chapter, bookmark it, follow it (I'm trying to straddle two separate fanfic sites here), whatever.  
> Someone on one of the sites was a little concerned about the relationship between Eren and his dad. The only answer I can give them for now is my usual advice: Wait it out. I know details about the way things are between the two of them are more than a little foggy right now, but they'll clear up eventually.  
> Also, some whiny little bastard on one of these sites wants to know why I rated the fic M if nothing is specifically M-rated is happening. My only answer is GODDAMMIT, HE IS SIXTEEN, HOW FAST DO YOU EXPECT HIM TO MOVE???  
> That will be all.  
> Story time.

 

 

Things with the support group started out rocky, at best. At the outset, I hated it with the flaming passion of a thousand burning suns.And then... I didn’t. Over the span of what couldn’t have been more than three weeks, my whole opinion of the operation did a complete 180. First the angsty hatred faded into indifference, and then before I knew it I had begun to- dared I even say it- _enjoy_ going to the meetings. Aside from hiding in my room and flooding my consciousness with replayed TV shows and movies, I might have even called it my favorite thing to do.

Then again, it was really the only thing that I did.

Tuesdays and Thursdays were pretty much the only days that I ever did anything other than stay home and amuse myself for hours on end. The only exceptions were the days that my tutor came in for a visit. Even those happened far less often than they did during Mikasa’s school year, since he also provided summer-school teaching services to kids who were behind in their education for reasons different from mine. Then there was my monthly Rosevelin infusion in July. I didn’t know why they were still giving it to me. I thought that since my leukemia cells had gotten loose the previous summer, the medication had stopped working. But apparently it was still proving itself effective, since after they had brought the dosage up I’d been in remission for... what was it, a year?

It was the same routine every week. Monday: nothing. Tuesday: support group. Wednesday: nothing while anticipating next support group. Thursday: support group. Friday and everything that came after it: nothing. And so on until the week started over again.

The more meetings I went to, the less resentment I held for the YCSG. I had Armin there. He was always a nice day-brightener. I had also managed to pick up a few other cancer buddies along the way. Marco had been quick to reach out. I always had a feeling that he would be. He was the first name in my contact list after Armin, making it just a touch less sad. Reiner turned out to be just as friendly as Armin had said. Really friendly. So fucking friendly that it actually creeped me out a little. But no one else in the support group seemed to mind. They had all sort of adopted him as their communal big brother, since he played the part so naturally. I figured that the discomfort was just me being antisocial and not giving him a chance. Bertolt gave me his cell number shortly after his boyfriend had broken into Eren’s little circle of friendship. Once word had gotten out that I was no longer guarding my personal space with my life, Hanji, Connie and Sasha practically threw their phone numbers at me. Krista was next in line, then Ymir with some gentle motivation from Krista. Only Annie and Jean stayed out of my contact list, either for their reasons or my own. It would have only made sense for Levi to be next, but I could never get up the nerve to ask him. He probably would have said no anyway.

After the eventful meeting where half of the exchange went down in a single hour, I realized that the YCSG was the only place I knew of where I had friends outside of my own family. That was also the day when I finally decided to stop pretending that I didn’t like the group and just accept the fact that whatever it was doing was probably the best thing for me.

The support group seemed to be having the exact opposite effect on Mikasa. The enthusiasm she’d shown in dragging me to the first few meetings faded fast. Before my indifference turned, she was at just about the same level of excitement as me. She didn’t seem to be getting anything out of the meetings, and I knew well enough that she had better things that she could have been doing. I was surprised she was even still coming to the meetings with me anymore, what with Jean throwing himself at her ten ways from Tuesday. Or Thursday. Either one.

And then there was the issue of Levi.

I didn’t know. That was all I could ever say when it came to him. As far as I was concerned, Levi was a living puzzle. I hardly knew anything about him, other than the fact that he was an LPN. I didn’t even know how old he was, although I couldn’t really be sure why the question bothered me so much. I tried talking to him a few times. And, on occasion, he did the same for me. I had no way of knowing if he ever felt as awkward as I did when we were together. He was never exactly what you’d call expressive. I was still questioning whether I wanted to reconnect with him or not. I had been ever since Mikasa had brought it up. Of course, that past summer Levi had been the closest thing I’d had to a friend in years. But I had sort of forgotten him after I left Trost. Something told me that he had done the same.

Support group meetings were usually made up of free snacks, one-on-one time with Armin, watching Jean attempt to get with my sister, getting into the circle, discussing our feelings for an hour, sometimes a writing assignment from Hanji, and finally breaking the circle up and hanging around outside until our rides home showed up, since a grand total of four of us actually had a driver’s license. Sometimes Levi would follow me outside. Then we’d stand around and talk until my dad or whoever happened to be taking us home showed up. I still couldn’t figure out why he did that for me. But I appreciated it when he did.

 

* * *

 

It was the Thursday meeting of the second week in July. As usual, we were all gathered in the circle, and someone or other was in the middle of talking about their traumatic childhood experiences at some sleepaway camp for cancer kids. I was busy half-listening to the story and half-thanking the cosmos that my dad, even with all his shortcomings, was anything but smothering and hadn’t subjected me to the kind of bullshit that the narrator had to suffer. And then Jean, with his impeccable timing, decided to cut them off just as the story was getting interesting.

“Hey, guys, I’ve sort of got an announcement to make,” he said. “Just saying, so once the story is wrapped up-”

“Okay, Jean. You’ll get your turn. Now shut up.”

Jean sighed before shutting his mouth and sinking back into his seat. I glanced over at the nurse across the circle. Levi always had the best way of cutting Jean down to size.

Once the story was over, Jean didn’t spare a second before standing up again. “Okay. Now that that’s over with...”

The support group turned their attention to Jean, some more reluctantly than others. I could have sworn that I saw him look directly at Mikasa before he began.

“I just wanted to let everyone here know that I’m going to be having a party at my place this Sunday. It starts at three and we haven’t figured out an ending time yet, so I guess that means you can leave whenever you feel like it. It’ll be a pool party, so if you’re going, you might just want to keep that in mind...” I caught him glancing at Mikasa again. I had the briefest thought of Jean seeing my sister in a bathing suit before it was overtaken by a sudden urge to pick him up and throw him through the window. “If you’re interested, come see me after the meeting and I’ll give you my phone number. If you don’t have it already, that is. I’m gonna need all the RSVPs by Saturday, though, so if you haven’t made up your mind, make it up fast.”

Jean sat back down, and the support group discussions continued as if nothing had happened at all. I stared venomously at him for most of the remainder of the meeting. He’d sounded so sure of himself when he told the group about the party, as if he expected everyone to throw themselves at his feet at the end of his speech and start thanking him for the invitations. Sometimes I honestly had to wonder exactly who Jean Kirschtein thought he was.

Four in the afternoon arrived right on schedule. I spent my regular few minutes talking with people from that day’s group. Armin was off in a corner with Annie again. It was the fourth time I had seen it happen. I made a mental note to ask him about it sometime. It made me curious as to what they talked about while they were over there by themselves. Or texted about. Since, you know, Annie couldn’t really do much talking.

With Armin unavailable, I was left with Marco, Reiner and Bertolt for the day. And being with Marco, despite all its merits, unfortunately increased the risk of Jean.

Sure enough, Jean decided to strike.

“So, Jaeger,” he said, sidling up behind me and breaking into our conversation as if he belonged there.

I glanced sideways at him and spat, “The fuck do you want?”

“Hey. What’s with the hostility?” he said defensively. “I was just going to ask whether or not you were planning on attending.”

He didn’t even mention what “attending” was. He’d just expected me to know what he was talking about. Of course, I did know. But I decided to play dumb anyway.

“Attending what?”

“The party, numbskull. The thing I got up in front of the entire group to talk about. Remember?”

“Oh. You mean the ploy to see Mikasa with her clothes off?” I scoffed. “Yeah. Of course I remember.”

Redness flared up in Jean’s face. “Okay, first of all, I don’t know what kind of pervert you take me for, but whatever you’re thinking, you’re wrong. Second, I am not doing this because of her. I throw parties every summer. Because people like them. And because I have friends, because unlike you, I’m not an antisocial jerk.”

“But seeing her in spandex would be a nice plus, wouldn’t it?” I shot back.

“Eren, I swear to god if you are even _thinking_ of getting betwee-” ****

“Okay, Jean, that’s enough,” Marco said, taking a step towards Jean and putting his hands on his shoulders. “Calm down. Eren’s not thinking of doing anything. You know, I had this idea that maybe on Saturday, I could come with you to...” I lost the rest of Marco’s statement as he steered Jean away from us and towards the door. The tension in the air dissolved into relief.

And the day was saved once again, thanks to the Freckled Messiah.

“He’s a bit touchy today, isn’t he?” Bertolt said once Jean was out of earshot.

“A bit? More like several thousand,” Reiner replied.

I shook my head and stared after Jean and Marco as they retreated to the other end of the room. “It’s like he doesn’t realize it’s my sister he’s talking about.”

“Yeah. Jean’s always been a little desperate like that,” Reiner said.

I turned back to him. “He has?”

“Yeah. Definitely. There was this NEC girl that joined the group that he was hitting on last year. He threw one of his parties, she decided to come, then, well... She stopped showing up to meetings after that.”

I suppressed another cringe attack. There were _way_ too many implications that came with that fun little fact. “Does he actually throw those parties every summer?” ****

“Of course.” Bertolt looked as if he were shocked that I didn’t know. “I’m surprised he wasn’t hosting one sooner. His lives in the same town as this place. Have you ever seen Trost? Other than the hospital, I mean.”

Images of massive million-dollar houses, expansive lawns decorated with Sina University merchandise and overpriced-boutique-lined streets immediately came to mind. Of course I had seen the rest of Trost. I drove through it every time I came to visit this hellhole. “Yeah. It must where all the rich doctors who work here live or something like that.”

“Well, Jean’s dad is one of those. He’s in plastic surgery, and his mom is a pharmaceuticals CEO. Their place is huge. Literally almost everything you can imagine someone putting in a house, he has in his house. And it’s never just the support group there. There are always other people. He usually invites people from Trost High. And then he sometimes has joint parties with his older sister.”

“He has a sister?”

“Yeah. Her name’s Nicole. She’s a sophomore at Sina. She’s probably told Levi and Hanji about the whole thing already.”

“Wait a second,” I cut in. Things were going too fast for me to keep up. “The admins know Jean’s sister?”

“Yeah. Hanji told me about it after the first meeting,” Reiner explained. “They all had biochemistry together last year or something, and as far as I know she’s still talking to them. Besides, Nicole always invites her friends from Sina, so there’ll be a good amount college chicks present, if you’re interested.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me.

This was too much. Reiner’s words were going straight over my head. “I’ll think about it,” I noncommittally replied.

“Cool,” Reiner replied, giving me an approving nod. He glanced sideways at Bertolt. “I’m definitely going. It’s about time Jean hosted one of these damn things. What about you, Bert?”

Bertolt gave Reiner a confirmative smile. He hadn’t even needed to ask. I failed to the hold back the memory of them making out against Reiner’s Neon and asked, “So does the entire support group always go?”

“Usually,” Bertolt answered. “Kirschtein parties are a pretty big deal.”

“He thinks everything in his life is a pretty big deal.”

“Yeah, but when it comes to his parties, it’s actually true.”

I dug my phone out of my pocket and checked the time. We’d been standing around for almost an extra five minutes. Levi would start snapping at us if we didn’t pick up and leave soon. And if that weren’t all I had to worry about, my dad might have actually showed up on time today and be waiting for me outside. I wasn’t sure if he’d be annoyed with me if I made him wait, but it was always possible that he might be. I gave Reiner and Bertolt a tiny wave. “See you guys at later,” I said. It took every ounce of self control I had not to say _See you gays later_ instead. ****

“See you,” Bertolt responded, one arm already around Reiner’s waist.

“Remember,” Reiner added. “The party! RSVP by Saturday!”

I nodded and went out into the hallway. Mikasa and Armin were standing around outside. I assumed that they had been waiting for me. “Hey,” I said, stuffing my hands into my pockets as we started towards the entrance. “Sorry I took so long.”

“It’s no big deal,” Armin said. “We were only out here for a minute or two.”

“What were you doing hanging around in there?” my sister asked.

“Getting harassed by Jean.” I stared straight ahead, pure resentment displayed plainly on my face. I heard Mikasa scoff in response. “He apparently thinks that party invitations are his gift to humanity.”

“Tell me about it.” I heard her voice drop into a low-pitched, shitty imitation of Jean’s. “So you’re coming to the party, right? Not to brag, but it’s going to be pretty amazing. It’s only the biggest event of the year since the fucking Oscars.”

“So he was on your ass about it too, huh?”

I glanced over at her. Her face was almost a mirror image of my own. “Yeah. In more ways that one.”

I didn’t even want to think about what she was implying through that word choice. ****

“Marco said he was going,” Armin cut in.

“Of course he is,” Mikasa retorted. “He’s Jean’s best friend. If he doesn’t go, who will?”

“Reiner. And Bertolt. And Connie and Sasha. Krista, too. Annie said she was thinking of going, but she’s not really sure.”

“Really? Because I’m not so sure that Annie said anything.”

Armin glared at me. I grinned back at him.

“I still don’t know if I want to go or not,” Mikasa said, looking ahead of us towards the cancer center entrance. “I mean, from what the others have told me, it’s usually a pretty good time. But then there’s...” She trailed off, biting her lip as she stared straight ahead.

“Jean,” I finished for her.

She nodded. “Jean.”

We left the conversation at that as we crossed through the sliding glass doors and stepped outside into the late afternoon sunlight. Despite my worries from before, my dad’s car was nowhere to be seen. Neither was grandpa Arlert’s. After a minute of comfortable silence out in front of the hospital, Armin spoke up again.

“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m thinking of going.”

I glanced sideways at him. “You are?”

“Yeah. Why not?” He looked over at me, his blue eyes bright.

“I guess you’re right. Pretty much everyone else is going.” I shifted uncomfortably against the wall. I wasn’t sure why I even felt uncomfortable enough to do it in the first place. It wasn’t like he expected me to go with him, was it?

And Jean was going to be there. I wasn’t about to force Mikasa to come with me if I suddenly decided on a fickle, unexplainable whim that I wanted to attend. But she would probably come anyway. She tended to do that sort of thing on her own. And she liked Jean just about as much as I did. Probably less.

And Reiner had said that Jean’s sister went to Sina, right? Didn’t I know someone else from there? I dug around in my head for that conversation, but only bits and pieces turned up.

All the same, I suddenly really, _really_ wanted to go to Jean Kirschtein’s party. ****

An unusually short four and a half minutes later, grandpa Arlert’s Accord pulled into the parking lot. Armin gave us a quick goodbye and made me promise to text him once I’d made up my mind about Jean’s party. Then it was just me and Mikasa. We stood around outside for a while longer, baking in the irritatingly warm sunlight and talking about everything but Jean’s party. I checked my phone after a few minutes had passed. Then Mikasa checked hers. Then I checked mine. Then I checked it again.

It was almost 4:45. My dad was still nowhere in sight.

Whatever. He was bound to show up soon.

Sometime.

Eventually.

 _God fucking dammit, where the hell is he?_ ****

“Oi. What are you two still doing here?”

I tensed up at the sound of a razor-edged voice that I had recently learned to recognize again. My head whipped around towards the door. The panels of glass had slid open and Levi was standing between them. He had the plastic bags that had brought that day’s snack contribution to the meeting looped over one arm, the containers inside crushed and empty. He took a step forward and the doors slid shut behind him. “Hey. I asked you a question, brat.”

Mikasa answered for me, seeming to miss Levi’s use of my adorable little pet name. “Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“Our dad was supposed to pick us up over half an hour ago and hasn’t shown up yet.”

All of a sudden Levi’s steely gaze started to soften up. “Oh. He hasn’t?”

“No,” I replied before Mikasa could. Judging by the look on her face, she still hadn’t gotten past the kinda-hot-but-also-a-total-dick first impression that Levi had given her during my liver surgery summer. My awkwardly told story from Armin’s visit two weeks ago didn’t seem to have swayed her at all. “Both of us have tried texting him, but he won’t answer and his phone keeps going to voicemail.”

“My. That’s unfortunate,” Levi said. His deadpan voice almost covered up the split-second flash of pity I had seen earlier. Before any of us could say another word, he had spun around on his heel and started walking away. He disappeared around the corner, leaving us helpless to do anything but stare after him.

Mikasa set her teeth and let out a long, growling sigh. “What. A piece. Of shit.”

I shrugged, tugging out my phone to check the time again. “Well, that’s Levi for you.”

“What’s his problem?” she snipped, even though I thought the conversation was over. It was 4:52. This had to be some kind of record. “Did he just come out here to make fun of us or something?”

“Probably not. There’s a dumpster where he was headed, and he was carrying bags.”

“But he didn’t have to be so snobby about it.”

“What, taking out the trash?”

“No. Asking why we’re stuck standing around in front of a fucking hospital,” she answered roughly. She dug her phone out of her messenger bag and unlocked the screen. “4:53. And he hasn’t even texted me back yet.” She sighed and put her phone back. “It’s like he’s on the goddamn moon or something.”

A second later, Levi reappeared at the corner of the building, the plastic bags no longer present. He kept his eyes down as he slowly approached, not regarding either me or Mikasa until he was in front of the doors again.

“What, you two are still here?” he asked as they slid open for him.

Once again, Mikasa answered before I had the chance. “Yeah,” she snapped, her eyes flickering up to glare daggers at him. “And if you’re going to make another douchebrained comment about how pitiful we look standing here, I suggest you keep your mouth shut and keep walking.”

Levi blinked and raised his eyebrows at her. “Whoa. I don’t recall pissing in your coffee this morning.”

“We’ve just been waiting around for a long time,” I cut in before Mikasa could snap at him again, which she certainly would if given the chance. I made a show of taking my phone out and checking it for the thirty-seventh time. “Our dad’s never usually this late.”

Levi stood with his arms crossed over his chest, biting his lip and looking the both of us over like a bird watching chipmunks scamper around on the ground with a hungry cat nearby. I wished desperately that his face could be a little less impassive, even just for a second, to let me in on what was going through his head. He stood there so long that the doors of the entrance slid shut again. A moment later, he uncrossed his arms. “My shift ends at five,” he said.

I blinked at him, my face screwing up in confusion. “What?”

“My shift ends at five,” he repeated. “I’m getting let out early today. I can give you guys a ride home, if you wouldn’t mind waiting around for another five minutes.”

I almost collapsed from the sudden wave of relief that washed through me. “We’ve been out here for almost an hour,” I replied. “Five minutes is nothing at this point.”

Levi nodded. “Okay. I’ll be back in a bit.” He stepped back, letting the doors register him and slide open again. “You know how to get back to your place from here, right?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Y-yes, I think so,” I said. I had taken that trip so many times that if I didn’t know it by heart, I either had to be blind or just really, really inattentive. Probably both.

“Good.” With that, Levi disappeared into the hospital and the entrance doors slid shut behind him.

Mikasa stared after him for a second before turning her gaze to me. The charcoal in her eyes had turned into dark grey poison. “Why did you do that?” she demanded.

“What are you pissed off at me for?” I asked in response. “I don’t see any other way of getting back home.”

“Yeah. Now. But what about later?” she retorted. “What if he’s on his way here and his phone is just dead or something? He’ll show up and there will be no one here.”

“Mikasa, it’s been an hour. I’m pretty sure he’s not coming.”

“So you’d rather just take a ride home from the bitchy nurse?”

“Yes.”

Mikasa scoffed, folded her arms over her chest and leaned back against the wall. “I can not believe you are making us get into a car with him.”

“Well, too bad. You’re going to have to.”

“Do you even remember what an absolute clean freak this guy is? He probably has plastic coverings on the seats and rules about where we can put our feet or something.”

“Come on, Mikasa. Just this once. It’s a fifteen minute drive from here back to the house. And then we’ll forget any of this happened and never get a ride from Levi again.”

My sister growled under her breath and looked away in defeat. “Fine. Just this once.”

A few short minutes later, the cancer center doors slid open again and Levi came traipsing through. “Alright, this way,” he commanded, not even offering us a sideways glance. I could practically feel the resentment coming off of Mikasa in waves as we listlessly obeyed Levi’s orders. I kept up with his unusually fast pace and Mikasa lagged behind. It took a full minute of staring at Levi from behind to realize that something was different.

“What happened to your clothes?”

“I changed,” Levi answered flatly. “What, did you think that I wear just scrubs all the time?”

“N-no, I just... wasn’t expecting it.” The unanticipated wardrobe swap seemed to have changed Levi into a completely different person. I was surprised that I hadn’t noticed sooner. He’d switched out his boxy, generic mint-green scrubs for a vintage grey Rolling Stones shirt, well-worn navy blue Converse and a pair of distressed black jeans that he would probably have to peel off that night. He’d layered a broken-in green plaid flannel over it all, one that looked so comfortable that I had to fight the urge to snatch it off of him and bury my face in it. When he wasn’t in scrubs, Levi actually looked pretty approachable. What Mikasa had said to me a year earlier was finally starting to make sense (if it hadn’t already).

Contrary to Mikasa’s prediction, there were no plastic covers on the seats of Levi’s bright green Kia Soul. He never once mentioned anything about feet placement, either. I slid into the front seat, letting Mikasa keep as much of her distance as the tiny juicebox of a car would allow. I twisted my neck around to glance into the back seat as she clambered in behind me and nodded towards the plastic-free seats. She rolled her eyes and took her phone out, letting me know that she had understood me perfectly.

“So,” Levi said as he dropped into the driver’s seat and stuck his key into the ignition. “You know how to get us back, right?”

“Yeah. First you take a right out of the parking lot, then it’s a while before you have to do anything else.” Levi pulled out of his parking space, then we were out on the road and Trost was disappearing behind us.

The drive home was mediocre, as far as car trips go. The silence that pervaded the car wasn’t 100% awkward, but it definitely wasn’t as comfortable as it could have been. Mikasa and her steady glowering from the backseat harbored most of the blame for that. Levi seemed to be twitching in his seat the entire time, his fingers clamped tightly around the wheel. Mikasa’s eyes were probably burning holes in the back of his seat. Then, on top of everything else, the car was constantly lurching around sudden stops and turns taken a split second too late. Most of that was my fault, though. I wasn’t the best at giving clear directions until approximately three seconds before they had to be carried out.

Fifteen disconcerted minutes later, we were back in the driveway of our house and Levi was shifting the car into park. He pulled the parking brake back and looked over at me. “This is the place, right?” he asked in a spectacular monotone.

“Yeah, it is. Thanks,” I murmured as I reached for my seatbelt. “I don’t know how we would have gotten home without you.” Well, that came out a little more gratifying than I had hoped.

“Don’t mention it, brat,” he said. “Now get out of my car.”

“Will do, nurseman,” I said, grinning. I stepped out of the car before Levi could retaliate and slammed the door shut just as he was opening his mouth. “See you later!” I shouted at him through the glass.

“Later will be too soon, brat!” he tossed back. Then he took his parking brake off, rolled out of the driveway and disappeared around a curve in the road.

“Well, that could have gone better.”

I turned around to see Mikasa standing in the middle of the driveway, her arms once again folded tightly over her chest and her phone clenched in one hand. “Yeah, it definitely could have,” I agreed, although I was pretty sure that her reasons were completely different from mine.

“What was with the snap decision to get a ride home from nurseman, anyway?” she asked, tapping furiously at her phone with her thumbs. “You just jumped at him the second he asked. It was kind of weird.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I just didn’t want to be waiting out in front of Trost until the sun went down.”

“It’s the middle of summer, Eren. The sun won’t be down for another four hours.”

“I know. But who’s to say we wouldn’t have been waiting that long?” I cautiously approached her and leaned over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Texting Dad,” she said coldly.

“What’s he saying?”

“Well, he finally got the text that I sent him forty-five minutes ago.” She sighed, locked her phone and slid it back into her pocket. “One of his lab partners was out sick today and he had her on speakerphone for the first two hours of the day or something. Anyway, his phone died, so he left it in his office to charge and he hadn’t picked it up again until now.”

“He’s not on his way to Trost or anything, is he?”

“No. He’s still at the lab.”

Dad hadn’t even left work. Big surprise there.

“Hey, Mikasa, what do we have in the fridge?”

“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“Because I’m starving. And I have no idea if there’s anything that either of us know how to cook hanging around.”

“Okay. I’m kinda hungry too, I guess. We should probably check it out.”

She started toward the door and I followed behind, grateful to have steered the conversation away from my dad’s absence.

 

* * *

 

Two hours later, I was lying around in my room and staring at my phone.

It wasn’t an unfamiliar position for me. I’d been stuck like this loads of times before. Well, loads of times in the past few weeks, to be accurate. I’d hardly even used my phone before joining the YCSG. I didn’t have anyone to text other than Mikasa. My dad hardly ever answered his phone, so I never saw the point in trying to contact him. Most of the lying and phone staring was done while debating whether or not to text Armin and complain to him about how angsty I was feeling. I did that more times than I would ever care to admit.

But this time, it wasn’t Armin I was battling my inner demons over. It was someone who I had never even considered texting before. To be specific, someone who had been bothering me about texting him all afternoon. And someone whose number I deliberately didn’t have programmed into my phone.

But the only reason I wanted to make even the most remote form of contact possible with Jean was because of that stupid party he was throwing.

I had been arguing with myself all night. I hadn’t been able to stop, even after Mikasa and I had given up on trying to cook and decided to order the cheapest takeout we could find. As of now, it had been going on for almost four hours. It was longer than I had ever spent debating nonstop about anything in my life. Well, except one thing. That one thing was Levi. But then, he’d become sort of a constant debate topic in the back of my mind/ He had been out of the running for a while.

I did not want to go to this stupid party at all. Jean was going to be hosting, and if there was anything I knew about Jean, it was that he was probably the worst excuse for a human being on the face of the earth. He hated my guts for no apparent reason, and I wouldn’t have put it past him to devise some convoluted plot to embarrass me at the party on Sunday if I happened to turn up. Not to mention the fact that he felt the exact opposite way about my sister. If she showed up along with me, which she definitely would if I said I was going, he would probably be harassing her the entire time. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t push away the images of Jean throwing tacky pickup lines at Mikasa in every other sentence, touching her everywhere that wasn’t covered by her bathing suit, sliding his hands under the already scanty spandex, taking her up to his room in the middle of the party and locking the door, and an infinite supply of other horrors that I couldn’t even bring myself to specify. Aside from all of this, I was still obscenely inexperienced in the realm of human interaction. My social life had been all but six feet under for years. I wasn’t sure if attending the YCSG counted as having one either.

But that gave me all the more reason to get some practice, didn’t it?

The rest of the support group had seemed pretty excited about it. Despite all his inherent douchiness, Jean appeared to have made a name for himself in the hosting department. And Armin had decided to go. If everything else went to shit, I could always spend the party with him. And hadn’t Reiner said something about Nicole inviting a handful of college buddies from Sina?  
I clicked the lock button on my phone, tapped my passcode, stared at the empty message screen, and locked it again a second later. I did not want to go to this party. Not at all. But at the same time, I would have given whatever was left of my liver to go.

 _What would I even say to him in the RSVP?_ I thought, flipping my phone over and over in my fingers. _Should I be all concise and formal about it, or would that just make it look like I have a stick up my ass?_ There was no way I could get into contact with him, anyway. I didn’t have Jean’s phone number. ****

I did know someone who might.

But I also didn’t know how willing she would be to give it to me.

I stuck my phone into my pocket, swung my legs over the side of my bed and walked over to my doorway. I leaned out and took a deep breath. “MIKASAAAAA!”

A second later, she poked her face out of her door down the hallway. Her kohl eyeliner had been smudged off, and her hair was tangled into a jet-black rat’s nest. “WHAT?” she shouted back to me.

“What are you doing in there?” I asked, my voice returned to a normal volume.

“Girl things,” she grumbled, stepping out into the hallway. “It’s none of your business.”

“So... jilling off, then?”

She sighed longer and more heavily than any human ever should. “You’re gross.”

“Hey. It happens. It’s no big deal.”

“I wasn’t. End of story.”

“Did you clean up afterwards, at least?”

“I said end of story. What did you call me out here for?”

I stepped out to meet her halfway. “I wanted to ask you something. For something, actually.”

Mikasa blinked, interest piquing in her expression. “What is it?”

“Well, you remember the thing that everyone was talking about at YCSG today?”

Mikasa tensed up, her eyes fixing on me and slowly filling with bitterness. “You’re not.”

I pursed my lips and sighed. “I am.”

“Why the hell would you want to go to something like this?”

I stared blankly at her for a second, not entirely sure how to respond. I had been asking myself that question for hours, and I hadn’t been able to come up with a single answer. “To be honest, Mikasa... I have no fucking clue.”

“And now you’re coming to me, hoping that I have Jean’s phone number and that I will somehow be willing to give it to you so that you can say yes to the invitation and go to his stupid pool party at his Trost McMansion.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Mikasa fixed her hands on her hips and pinned me with her gaze. “Give me one good reason why I should.”

“Armin will be there,” I offered sheepishly, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

Her stony posture softened up. She removed her hands from her hips and slid one into her pocket. “Okay.”

Her answer blindsided me like a car without headlights. “What?”

“I said okay,” Mikasa reiterated, taking her phone out and tapping at the screen. “I’ll give you Jean’s phone number. Go ahead and tell him that you want to attend his grand spectacular shindig or whatever the hell he’s decided to call it.”

She reached her arm out and offered her phone to me. I mechanically took it from her and stared at the screen. A strange number was displayed across the middle, and Jean’s name was at the top, punctuated nicely with a _(do not call EVER)_. “Thanks,” I mumbled, more confused than I ever thought I could be. ****

“Don’t thank me. It’s not a big deal,” Mikasa said, shooting everything she’d said before into one massive paradox. “Just do me one favor.”

I looked up at her. “What is it?”

“Let him know that I’ll be coming too.”

The same car that had mowed me down before had come back for sloppy seconds. “You want me to what now?”

“I’m not going to text him myself,” Mikasa said, shrugging her shoulders in a what-the-fuck-were-you-expecting gesture. “Do you think I want him to save me into his contacts and start spamming me with texts every hour of every day?”

“But why would you-”

“What are you, stupid?” Mikasa tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re socially inept, Eren. I’m not going to let you run out on your own and commit social suicide. I’m coming along to make sure you don’t wind up on a flagpole or in prison or something. Comprende?”

“Si, señorita,” I replied. Well, that went faster than I had expected. I knew she was going to want to come with me, but I hadn’t expected her to make up her mind so fast. I looked back down at the phone in my hand. “Hold on a second.”

“What is it now?”

“Why did you have Jean’s number in the first place?”

Mikasa shot me a dead-faced stare. “Because I could only run for so long.”

“Okay.” I started backing away and retreating back to my room. “I’ll tell Jean we’ll be there on Sunday. Maybe we can catch a ride from Armin or something.”

Mikasa nodded in agreement. “Yeah. As long as the Arlert Accord is still running by then.” She started back towards her room, but stopped and glanced back at me once she’d reached the door. “And don’t you dare text Jean from my phone.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. Because if he starts spamming me, you’ll be in the hospital on Sunday instead of at his party. Understand?”

I kept my mouth shut and nodded. Over the years, I’ve learned that when Mikasa promises you an injury, you take her seriously. Because if you don’t... Well, this is a story about cancer, not concussions.

Without another word, Mikasa slipped back into her room and shut the door. I did the same. I sat back down on my bed, both our phones splayed out in front of me. I opened up a new contact slot and punched Jean’s name and number in, taking care to add _Scumbag_ to his title. Then I opened up a new message and typed his name into the send to bar.

**Me: you win. i’m going to your stupid party. i hope you’re happy now.**

His response came flying at me before even a minute had gone by.

**Jean Scumbag Kirschtein: Too bad, guest list is almost full. Nicoles got friends too and our house only has so much space.**

**Me: oh i forgot to mention Mikasa is going too.**

I smirked to myself as the message loaded and sent.

Jean’s reply came in a few minutes later.

**Jean Scumbag Kirschtein: My address is 563 Leto Avenue in Trost.**

**Jean Scumbag Kirschtein: Party starts at 3 PM. Show up as late as you want because no one really gives a shit.**

****  
****

* * *

 

 

Sunday couldn’t have come soon enough.

After waking up earlier than usual (meaning around 10 AM), I immediately threw myself out of bed, ran downstairs, downed a bowl of cereal and went straight back to my room to start throwing my bag together to bring to Jean’s. I may not have been to a party since middle school, but I still knew that pool party attendance required a little more preparation than most. After cramming an extra shirt and pair of shorts into a complementary sports bag from some cancer fundraising event I was dragged to god knows how many years ago, I ripped my pajamas off and got dressed. I checked my phone halfway through to see that Armin had sent me a text shortly before I had woken up.

**Armin: Hey. I looked up Jeans address last night. We’ll be stopping by to pick you up at 2:30. Can u be ready by then?**

I quickly typed in my response.

**Me: Yea totally. Did u txt mikasa?**

**Armin: Yep. She knows when I’ll be there. You know, just in case u forget**

**Me: Stfu. I’m not that bad.**

**Armin: You sometimes are :/**

**Me: Fine be that way. See u l8r nerd**

**Armin: Having a giant Sherlock poster in my room does not make me a nerd!!!!!!**

**Armin: Ok maybe a little.** ****

I laughed to myself and placed my phone back on my dresser. I’d pulled on a pair of swim trunks and an old 2004 Linkin Park shirt while texting. I glanced at my digital clock, even though I had just checked the time on my phone. It was 10:35. I still had more than 4 hours left. I turned on my laptop and decided to scroll through Tumblr to pass the time, fastening my headphones over my ears to drown out the world and try to calm myself down.

I was so excited for Jean’s stupid party that I couldn’t even stand it. But at the same time, I was dreading it more than I had dreaded my first surgery. I had hardly thought about anything else in the past few days. Mainly because there wasn’t much else to think about, but that was beside the point. I hadn’t been to any kind of social gathering since my relapse in freshman year. And I knew, somewhere deep in my soul, that this was not going to be just a handful of kids gathered in the same place. Reiner and Bertolt’s enthusiasm over the whole affair had assured me of that. This was going to be a _real_ party. And I had no idea what the hell I was getting myself into.

Not only was I walking in blind, but there was also Jean to contend with. And Mikasa had to contend with him as well. ****

But Reiner had said Nicole was bringing friends from Sina. And for some reason, the mention of Sina made the excitement come bubbling back up and turned the dread into some kind of twisted emotional cocktail that felt nothing but disorienting. And no matter how I tried, I couldn’t remember why.

The smattering of hours spiraled away as I scrolled, my thoughts bouncing back and forth inside my skull. Jean. Mikasa. Social anxiety. Sina. I couldn’t decide which issue I wanted to work out first, so in the end, I didn’t work any of them out. Before I was anywhere near ready, I felt the faint vibrations of an outdated engine traveling through the house. I had somehow managed to spend the entire four hours between checking the time and Armin’s arrival scrolling through Tumblr and worrying.

“Eren!” Mikasa shouted at me from the kitchen. “Armin’s here! You ready to go?”

I scrambled to my feet, slung my party pack over my shoulder and staggered to the stairs. “Yeah, I am! Be right there!”

I made it downstairs just in time to hear Armin’s signature timid-mouse knock and see Mikasa opening the door for him.

“Hey, guys,” he said, flashing us an excited smile. “You all set?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Let’s just leave and get this over with. The anticipation is killing-”

My sentence dropped dead when my eyes landed on Mikasa. She looked over at me and cocked her head to the side. “What is it?”

“That’s what you’re wearing?”

Mikasa looked down at herself. She was wearing tattered jean shorts, a blue and yellow tribal bikini top, and... and nothing else. “What, is there something wrong with it?”

“I thought we were supposed to be avoiding getting you sexually harassed by Jean,” I pointed out, thankfully able to keep my eyes where they belonged. “You’re pretty much stapling a _hit on me_ sign to your forehead.” ****

“This was just what I wanted to wear, and I’m not going to let him limit me. Is there something wrong with that?”

Armin hummed in agreement and looked to me. “She’s got a point.”

“I guess she does,” I acquiesced. “But you brought something to cover up in case he-”

“Of course I did. I’m a big girl now, Eren. I can dress myself.”

“Alright, alright, I get it. Sorry for caring.” I sighed and started toward the door. The three of us walked outside, piled into the Arlert Accord and started off towards Trost.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jean’s house wasn’t exactly a house. It was really more of a manor. The whole thing was three stories tall and the size of probably four of my houses. It had wide, white-framed windows, a beige stucco arch over the front door and walls comprised of bricks in a charming variety of browns. I could hear the distant sounds of music and voices drifting around from the backyard. When Bertolt had been obsessing over Jean’s house, he hadn’t been exaggerating in the least.

My hand hovered in front of the doorbell, still hesitating. There really wasn’t any point to it anymore. I had decided to go through with this a solid three days earlier and the Arlert Accord was long gone. There was no going back.

I was going to fuck this all up so badly. I just knew it.

“What are you waiting for? Just ring the doorbell already,” Mikasa chided behind me.

I took a deep breath and pressed it. The tinny, muffled chimes seeped through the solid oak door. I caught a glimpse of movement behind the frosted glass window before the latch clicked and the door swung open. A tall, skinny Barbie doll of a girl stood in the doorway. She was sporting a Sina softball tee shirt over her bikini, and her ash blonde hair was tied back, revealing the dark brown shade underneath. She looked us over with her narrow hazel eyes. “You’re... Jean’s friends, right?”

I tried not to cringe at the subtle sneer in her voice. “Y-yeah, we are. He said we were coming, right?”

“Hold on a sec.” The girl leaned away from the doorway and returned with a few sheets of printer paper. “What’s your name?”

“Eren.” I looked over my shoulder. “And that’s Mikasa and Armin.”

“Oh. Yeah, there you are,” she said, tapping the paper. “Come on in. Put your stuff anywhere you won’t forget it. Pool’s out back, food is everywhere, go knock yourselves out.” Without another word, she spun away and stalked off with her nose in the air, leaving the door wide open behind her.

That was Nicole Kirschtein. She was so similar to Jean I was surprised the two of them weren’t twins.

Mikasa took the lead walking through the door. I followed, and Armin tagged along behind us, shutting the door in our path. The entire house was clogged with people, all of them either our age or slightly older. Mikasa practically had to carve a path through the crowd to see the rest of the house. I couldn’t stop the shiver that crawled up my spine. I hated the feeling of being surrounded by strangers on all sides. We had yet to find anyone we recognized. And as far as I could tell, it would be a while before we would.

“Hey, guys! Guys, over here!”

My head snapped in the direction of the voice. An arm was flailing desperately around in the air, which was attached to the suntanned shoulder of a boy with a buzzcut and a stoner grin that looked like it would rip his face in half if it got any wider. It was Connie. He was sitting on the kitchen counter, Sasha hanging around nearby with an entire bowl of potato chips on hand. I sighed with relief and started forging a path towards them, Armin and Mikasa close behind.

“Connie!” I shouted out over the conversational hum.

“Eren!” he shouted back. “I didn’t know you were going to show up!”

I slid up next to the counter and shrugged. “That’s the thing. I wasn’t.”

“So why’d you change your mind all of a sudden?” Sasha asked around a mouthful of chips.

“Um...” I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. It seemed as if my brain had suddenly ceased to function. There was that question again. Why I changed my mind?

Thankfully, Armin and Mikasa caught up and saved me from myself.

“Hey, Connie. Sasha,” Mikasa said, greeting them with a convincing smile. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“That outfit is what’s fancy,” Sasha chirped, eyeing my sister’s clothing (or lack of it). “Sweet top. You’re from like, Final Fantasy or something.”

Mikasa grinned victoriously and glanced at me. “Thanks. It’s new.”

“Any idea where we can put our stuff?” Armin asked, holding up the reusable Whole Foods bag he’d used to bring his change of clothes. “I don’t want to be dragging this thing around for the entire party.”

“We just put our stuff upstairs,” Connie answered. “Jean’s room is the second door on the right. No one’s allowed to go up there, so we figured it was safe. I think the rest of the support group left their stuff in there too.”

“Thanks,” I said. I quickly turned away and started pushing my way through the crowd toward the stairs.

The sea of people started to thin out as I made my way up the staircase, completely disappearing by the time I reached the landing of the second floor. I glanced over my shoulder to see that Armin and Mikasa had decided to tag along. Connie had said the second room on the right was Jean’s. I approached the appointed door, crossed my fingers in the hopes that he was busy somewhere else and slipped inside.

Jean’s room wasn’t anything special. Well, except for the giant flatscreen tv hanging on one wall, the polished black shelf of gaming and entertainment systems underneath it, the two extra doors that probably led to a personal bathroom and walk-in closet, and the fact that his bed was the size of a fucking meadow. Other than that, it wasn’t anything special. Just as I’d suspected, there were a few bags and articles of clothing scattered across the grey plaid expanse of his comforter. I spied Annie’s oversized grey sweatshirt thrown into the mix. Mikasa peeked through the door just as I was shrugging my party pack off.

“Well, someone’s eager today,” she said, walking in with Armin close behind.

“I just didn’t want to be dragging this around,” I replied, tossing my bag into the pile on Jean’s bed. “I might as well have my hands free while I humiliate myself.”

Mikasa rolled her eyes and threw her messenger bag at mine. “If you’re going to be so negative about all of this, then why did you decide to go in the first place?”

I couldn’t even guess which time it was that she’d asked me that question. I’d stopped bothering to count a long time ago. “Mikasa, we’ve been through this already.”

“As long as we’re here, we might as well have fun. I don’t know how you’re going to accomplish that with all the bitching and moaning you’re doing.”

“I’m not planning on bitching and moaning for the entire party,” I retorted. “Just for right now.”

Armin made his way over to the bed and dropped his bag next to ours. “Well, whenever you’re done doing that, you want to come out back and see the pool? It’s insane. It’s like he has his own private resort. Jean’s parents could probably start charging admission for people to come visit.”

“Judging by the rest of their house, I don’t think they’d need to.”

“It’s just a thought,” he murmured, kicking his flip flops off. I grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head, then balled it up and stuffed it into my bag. I heard Mikasa shuffling around on the other side of the room while she took her shorts off. I glanced over at Armin, noticing he hadn’t made a single move.

“Hey. Aren’t you going to get changed?”

“Me?” Armin squeaked as if the question surprised him. “U-um, I was actually thinking of just keeping my shirt on until I actually decided to go swimming. Just, you know, didn’t really see a point in... um, walking around without it, you know?”

“I think someone’s feeling self-conscious today,” Mikasa teased, a smirk crossing her lips.

Armin’s face flushed a faint shade of pink. “N-no, I just...”

“Hey, it’s no big deal,” I said. I flicked my hand at my stomach, pointing out an obvious, lumpy red line running across my skin. It was the liver surgery scar that I’d been putting up with for almost a year. “As you can tell, not everyone here is going to look perfect.”

Armin sighed. “I know. But still-”

“Come on, Armin, it’s a pool party. What were you expecting?”

“Jesus, Eren, just let the man keep his shirt on,” Mikasa cut in. I turned to look at her and fought back the urge to scream. It was even worse without the shorts on. Jean would be all over her the second she stepped outside.

“Alright. But it’s going to be super weird when he gets in the pool.”

“Then maybe I just won’t go swimming,” Armin said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Please,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You’re tiny, you startle easily, and there’s a pool out back. I’ll give you half an hour before someone pushes you in.”

Armin let out a frustrated whine. I stifled a laugh and caught Mikasa biting one back as well. The three of us left Jean’s room and returned to the fray downstairs.

After a solid minute of pushing and shoving, we finally made it through the sliding glass door in the living room and stumbled outside. The patio and backyard weren’t anywhere near as crowded as the house. I took a deep breath of the fresh, non-people-scented air, grateful that I finally had enough space to let my lungs expand. Then I saw the pool.

Armin was right. It was just like a resort. Actually, it was better, since there were no weird old people or obnoxious little kids running around. The pool was huge, probably a few hundred cubic feet at the least. And that wasn’t even including the hot tub nearby, placed just above the pool with a tiny waterfall spilling over a miniature mountain of rocks from one into the other. Even if I had to spend the whole party dealing with Jean, this was going to be nice compensation.

“Hey! When did you guys get here?”

I whirled around at the sound of a bright, cheery voice. Marco’s sweet brown eyes met with mine, accompanied by an engaging smile. My face immediately returned it, and I was just about to wave him over when my gaze lowered from his face. My brain went into a mental cringe before I could stop it.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt. And his entire body was covered with scars.

I couldn’t stop staring, no matter how hard I tried. His peachy, freckled skin was fraught with jagged lines. Some of them were dark and sunken, some rising up in lumpy white markings, and whatever was left covered every other description of scar tissue that would come up in an internet search. They were slashed into his flesh as if carved by a wild animal, pulling his normal skin taut between them and stretching it in ten directions at once. I felt a strange burning sensation in rising up the pit of my stomach, and my attention drew instinctively towards my own scar. But mine was nothing in comparison to what had happened to him.

Well, he had mentioned that half the organs in his body either weren’t there or weren’t his.

I choked down the traumatized gasp that had been coming up and forced my eyes back up to his face. “Marco!”

“Polo!” he laughed. “And there’s actually a pool here this time.”

Armin seemed to melt with relief as soon as our Freckled Savior was in sight. He shouted his name a second before surging forward and winding his skinny arms around his waist. Marco returned the hug without question. “Hey, Armin. Good to see you, too.”

“Sorry. Just happy to see you,” Armin explained bashfully as he pulled back. “I don’t really do well around new people.” His eyes drifted down to Marco’s exposed torso. “Um... that’s a lot of...”

“Yeah,” he said indifferently. “Pancreatic cancer tends to spread a lot. It kind of comes with the territory. The transplants stopped after the first few years, though, so I don’t think I’m going to be getting new ones anytime soon.”

I wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the surgeries or the scars.

Armin looked back up at Marco’s face. “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to... I mean, they were just there and...I... Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“It’s no big deal. I’ve talked about it so much, it doesn’t really matter anymore.”

“Is anyone else from the support group here?” Mikasa pitched in, possibly to rescue Armin.

“Yeah. I think that Connie and Sasha are hanging around somewhere. I talked to Krista when she came in, and Reiner and Bertolt were out here not too long ago.”

“Well, at least we know we won’t be here by oursel-”

My sentence fell flat when a voice cut through the crowd and grated against my eardrums. “Hey, Marco, do you remember where Nicole put the-”

And that sentence was cut short as well.

Marco turned around and Jean materialized out of the crowd. A jolt of adrenaline flashed in my veins as he passed by his friend to stand directly in front of me, glaring at me as if I were a blackhead on the face of humanity. “Jaeger,” he spat.

I returned the disdainful favor. “Kirschtein.”

A smug grin spread across his undeniably horse-like face. “So, you just couldn’t stay away, could you?”

“No, I definitely could have, I just didn’t feel like it,” I snapped. “I didn’t show up just so you could piss me off the entire time.”

“Then why did you bother showing up at all?”

A hand settled on my shoulder before I could shoot my response at him. “Eren. Stop it.”

Jean’s sneer dropped from his face. He blinked, and his eyes went wide. “Holy...”

My head whirled around. Mikasa was standing behind me with a placid expression on her face. Also with her toned body, MMA six-pack and tan-lined cleavage all on absolute display.

I shrugged her hand off. “Mikasa,” I murmured quietly, flicking my eyes back at Jean.

Kirschtein’s dickishness melted away like it was made of ice. “H-hey, Mikasa,” he stammered. “You look...”

“Thanks,” Mikasa snipped, fully aware of what he was about to say.

“So... how’s life been lately?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Library work, support group, free time, that kind of stuff.”

“Oh. Nice.” I caught Jean’s eyes flicking back and forth between Mikasa’s eyes and her... other areas. I dug deep into my soul for enough restraint to keep myself from shoving Jean backwards into his own pool.

I stood by while the two of them talked, ready to step in if things got out of hand. Marco did the same, although I was pretty sure he wasn’t about to stop Jean if he decided to make a move. I, on the other hand, was ready to break his arms if it came to that. I glanced around after a few minutes to see that Armin had wandered off. I was just starting to wonder where he could have gone when my question was answered by a bloodcurdling shriek ripping through the air, followed by a loud _SPLASH._ ****

I spun around towards the pool. Armin was floundering around at one end, his shirt floating around him in the water and his hair plastered over his face. Reiner and Bertolt were standing at the edge, laughing so hard they looked like they might topple over and fall in after him. I noticed Annie a little ways off. She had her hands over her mouth, her face drawn up in a smile and her body shaking uncontrollably. God, it creeped me out so much when she laughed.

Armin found his footing on the bottom of the pool and reached up to push his hair out of his face. “Stop it, you guys! This isn’t funny!”

“Sorry. I thought you said you could swim,” Reiner joked. He’d also decided to keep his shirt on, which was probably for the best. I wasn’t in the mood for vomiting at the sight of his skin deformity, and I didn’t think the other guests were, either.

“I can, I just... What was that for?”

“It wasn’t for anything,” Bertolt replied. “It was just a joke.” ****

I glanced over at Mikasa. Jean was still keeping his hands to himself, and Marco was still keeping watch over them. Figuring that Mikasa could take care of herself if the host tried anything funny, I left them alone and made my way over to the poolside.

Armin looked dejectedly up at me as I approached. “Oh. There you are, Eren.”

I choked down a burst of laughter. His hair was sticking out on the side where he’d brushed it out of his face. The words _A Flock of Seagulls_ came to mind. “I bet you’re wishing you’d taken my advice now,” I said. ****

Armin sighed and looked down at his soaking shirt. "Just a little."

"You aren't hurt, are you?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Good.” A second later, I couldn’t stop myself from adding, “Can you seriously not swim?"

“Just shut up and help me out of here.”

“Okay,” I said, a tiny giggle escaping along with the word. Before I could even offer a hand to Armin, a huge, heavy arm looped around my shoulders.

“Eren!” Reiner boomed, pulling me towards his chest and crushing my entire skeleton in a deathly-tight bear hug. “Good to see you! Didn’t think you were going to show up.”

I wriggled free of Reiner’s grasp and tried to gasp for air as casually as I could. “Everyone keeps saying that.”

“Well, you aren’t really the social butterfly of the support group,” Bertolt mentioned, draping one ungodly long arm over Reiner’s shoulder. “And then there’s Jean.”

I sighed. “And then there’s Jean.”

The two of them continued talking while I knelt down next to the pool and offered a hand to Armin. He reached out toward me, and I took hold of one of his bony wrists, bracing my other hand on the edge of the pool. I was able to pull him out pretty quickly for someone with my strength. It was a miracle that my out-of-shape arm didn’t snap in half from the effort. Still, that was probably only because Armin was a twig.

Armin dropped down on the edge of the pool and and slumped over, hiding his burning face behind his hands. “That was so embarrassing.”

“Hey. It wasn’t so bad.” I glanced sideways to see Reiner crouched down next to him, one hand on his shoulder. “And think about it. Nobody here knows you. Half the people at this party you’ll probably never see again.”

Armin dropped his hand-shield and looked up at Reiner, his face still resentful. Reiner sighed and helped Armin get to his feet before apologizing and wrapping him up a reconciliation hug. _Man, this guy is really feeling the hugs today._ ****

By the time he released Armin, there was a huge Armin-shaped wet spot on his shirt and a faint smile had somehow found its way onto my friend’s face. “Okay, I guess it was kind of funny,” he admitted.

Reiner laughed and placed a hand on Armin’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “See? I told you!”

I played along and smiled to myself as well. Things seemed to be all taken care of. I had survived the trip there, Jean was being supervised, I wasn’t _completely_ surrounded by strangers, and it seemed like the waiting and guessing had been the worst of it. That was all behind me now. I figured I could probably spend a little while wandering around the house and see what other wonders the Kirschtein estate had to offer. Bertolt had certainly gotten my hopes up at the last meeting.

 

I turned away from the others to walk back to the house-

And froze.

I stared unblinkingly at the other end of the pool. Someone was climbing out. Suddenly my muscles had lost all function and I stopped dead, my eyes fixed on the stranger and unable to move. Then my vision was being taken over by the image of a toned, slender body, smooth skin with a barely-there tan, taut muscles, sculpted abs and raven hair dripping wet and tousled into the sexiest mess I have ever seen. All at once it suddenly made sense to me why the mention of Sina University had been so motivating.

Levi was here.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL, THERE IT IS, PEOPLE. THERE YOU HAVE IT.  
> Okay, just a few things I wanted to point out, since we're getting to know the rest of the support group a little better. I know that canonically Jean is an only child, and he is also an only child in literally every other fanfiction he exists in. But in this one, I felt like it would add a little to his character development of rich kid who appears to have everything but actually hates his life. Having a spoiled older sister who had been given everything so that their parents had nothing left for their younger child just seemed so fitting. Also it helped me work out a few plot details that would have been pretty messy otherwise.  
> I know that in pretty much every fanfic that gave Marco significant character development, he has siblings of some kind (usually a little sister ((Thanks, LAD and Droplets)). However, in this story he's an only child. You'll see why I did that later on.  
> As for everyone else, Connie has two younger siblings, Bertolt has a non-cancerous sibling and Reiner is and actual big brother with a younger brother AND sister. Everyone else is an only child, as far as I've worked it out. Either that or it wasn't important enough to the story to get into. YAY PLOT HOLES.  
> I'm pretty sure that Eren, with his cancer remissed for the most part, would be healthy enough to hang at someone's house for a few hours. He probably wouldn't be for what's going down after this, but let's face it. This is called fanFICTION for a reason.  
> See you next chapter.


	9. The Chapter I Was Too Drunk To Title

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After leaving this story on hiatus for over a month, I finally decided to update on maybe the nerdiest holiday in existence.  
> Happy Pi Day.  
> I was going to keep up with my numerology stuff and post the new chapter on the ninth, but then my internet connection mysteriously died and I couldn't get access to any of the sites where I'm publishing this story. Now that I'm stuck where I am, I guess Pi day is good enough. Anyway, a lot of my readers (meaning two. yes, two whole people) have been asking for updates, and I've been holding out on everyone long enough. I have the time to waste tonight, so I'm finally going to post this.  
> Also, I've got news. This weekend I reached 20 followers on asking-appelia. I feel like that's kind of a sad milestone to have, but it's something. I tried, guys.  
> Also lord-ravioli reached over 100 (meaning 101), but then again that blog had been in existence for over a year.  
> And guess what else. MORE NEWS.  
> I'm going to be making a few updates to the asking-appelia blog. I'm going to be adding a few pages. The first one is a page I'm going to be building for fanfiction prompts, where I'll be posting all the AUs and fanons that I've made, since I have WAY more than any healthy human being should.  
> Next update I'll be making to the blog are pages for my individual fanfics. Again, I've been checking, and still no one has posted anything under the tags. So so far I have nothing to post on the pages except for my own content (art, text posts, whatever the hell else I do). If you want to post anything in relation to any of my stories, tag it with "fic: ," then the title or title initials of whatever story it relates to. This story goes under the tags "fic: the monsters inside us" and "fic: tmiu."  
> I don't know why I still do this self-promotion crap, it honestly never works.  
> TELL YOUR FRIENDS. TELL YOUR FAMILY. TELL YOUR GRANDMA. I WROTE A SHITTY FANFICTION AND ALL THE WORLD SHOULD READ IT.  
> I should probably stop.  
> BREAKING NEWS. Someone who follows my author tumblr pointed out some some biology mistakes I made in writing this chapter. I've gone back and fixed them, so if you're reading this chapter over and something feels different, that's probably it.
> 
> Story time.

 

 

I stood at the edge of Jean’s pool and stared as Levi emerged from the water.

Watching him felt like some form of hypnosis. He might as well have been rising from the pool on angel wings for all the fascination I took in observing him. Every move he made was fluid and graceful. The taut muscles in his body worked together like clockwork as he pushed up against the concrete edge, picked his legs up and straightened out again. The sunlight glowed on his slick skin, lighting up the barely-existent tan of someone who spent the majority of his days inside a hospital, but still somehow managed to look alive. He gave his head a quick shake, and his hair flicked across his forehead in sleek, silky strands of black. Water drops scattered from the already sexy mess and rolled lazily over his sculpted arms and stomach. Lucky, lucky water drops.

_Wait. What?_

I blinked, and just like that the spell broke. A shudder ran down my spine and I tried to shake some sense back into myself. What the fuck was I thinking? Did I just catch myself fantasizing?

About Levi?

Was it even Levi that I was looking at?

“Oi. Brat. What’re you staring at?”

I cringed. Yeah, it was definitely Levi.

My ex-nurse had fixed his razor-sharp eyes on me. He cocked his head to the side and ran a hand through his dripping hair to push it away from his eyes. My mind flashed back to the ethereal vision I’d seen just seconds earlier before jolting back into reality. He was glaring at me. Oh god, I was weirding him out.

_Quick, Eren. Say something intelligent._

“H-hey, Levi.”

Levi’s eyebrows twitched into a different position of annoyance. “Hi,” he deadpanned.

_Great job, fucknuts._

“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” I choked out. My throat was tightening up and I felt like all of my organs had been replaced with marbles. My eyes flicked impulsively back down to his just about perfect body, then resorted to bouncing back and forth between his body and his face. It was like a train wreck; I couldn’t stop looking at it.

“I didn’t know you were, either,” Levi replied flatly. “I guess that makes this a surprise for the both of us.”

I nodded dumbly in agreement. My eyes drifted back down to his body and stuck there. Holy _shit_. I had seen his toned arms countless times before, but never could I have imagined that he looked like this. Saying that Levi Ackerman had the physique of an olympic gymnast would not have been an exaggeration in the slightest. I had no idea what this guy did in his spare time, but somehow he managed to sculpt his body into something I couldn’t have imagined in even my wildest, gayest, most perverted dreams. He seemed to be made entirely from solid muscle. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him, or stop myself from noticing the way the soaking waistband of his plain black trunks clung to his defined hips like a second skin, and the smooth pattern of his chest and abs tapering down and disappearing behind the fabric.

If I had thought that he looked attractive in his everyday clothes, seeing him like this damn near set my brain on fire. **  
**

My face started blazing as I realized I was staring at him again. I quickly ripped my eyes away and tried to meet his gaze again. I really had to stop doing that. “So... what are you doing here?” I asked.

“I’m attending a party. What the hell does it look like?” Levi answered, fixing one hand on his hip and nodding his head toward the pool.

“I know. But... why?”

“Because I was invited.”

“You came to Jean’s party?”

“No. I came to Nicole’s.”

The realization hit me like a dodgeball to the face. Nicole was a Sina student. So was Levi. I finally remembered that conversation with Reiner, when he had told me that she had probably already asked Hanji and Levi to come. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten. It all made sense. My excitement over the mention of Sina University also made sense. But I still didn’t know why the prospect of seeing Levi set me off so much. Being around him was never anything but awkward.

“Right. You have classes with Nicole, right?”

“Just one. I take organic chemistry with her. She wants to go into cosmetics, I think.”

“Oh. That’s cool,” I said. Silence fell between us a split second later. I searched my brain for something to say, but couldn’t seem to find anything. The quiet stretched on and on like a break between songs on shuffle. Finally Levi started to get bored.

“Well, it’s been nice, brat, but if you don’t mind...” He took a step forward, brushing me aside and heading back into the house.

Suddenly the ice in my muscles melted and words came flooding into my head. I spun around and started walking. I shouted his name out before I could stop myself.

“Levi!”

He glanced over his shoulder. “What?”

“I-I just wanted to ask...” I stammered as I caught up to him, “Is it weird hanging around here with all these high school kids?”

He shrugged his shoulders and kept walking. “It isn’t much weirder than what I do on a daily basis.”

“I know. But you’re not getting paid to be here.”

Levi scoffed. “I really think that getting free food and access to a resort pool is payment enough.”

“Did Nicole invite anyone else from Sina?”

“You blind or something, brat? Look around. There are so many people in Sina Stallions merchandise that the team spirit is making me sick.”

“I mean people the support group might know.”

“Oh. Hanji’s running around here somewhere. Nicole had invited her, really. She’s a lot more into this whole socialization thing than I am. I just happened to get swept along.”

I laughed under my breath. “I know how that feels.”

“What, does Mikasa still have to drag you by your shoelaces to the support group meetings twice a week?”

“No,” I shot back, my cheeks heating up. “I-I mean, not anymore. I’ve... I’ve gotten better about it.”

“And how bad were you before?”

“Pretty bad,” I murmured, another nervous laugh slipping past me.

“Thought so,” Levi said with a small nod. “The whole boyish-cancer-angst thing was a fairly obvious hint.”

I looked over at him, my eyebrows knitting up. “Was it really that bad?”

“You sat by yourself and brooded for the first three meetings. Clearly something was not right.”

I cast my eyes back to the floor and sighed. He was right. It only took me until now to realize what a moody idiot I must have looked like.

“So what brought you to the horse’s stable?”

I looked back up at Levi, my face screwed up in confusion. “What?”

“Come on. That Kirschtein kid has the face of a horse. Don’t tell me that you haven’t thought about it too.”

I blinked. I had thought about it. Several times. “It is pretty horsey, isn’t it?”

“Is that why you’re so dead-set against him getting with your sister?”

“No. What kind of shallow dipshit do you think I am?”

Levi turned to me with a razored glare that had me shutting my mouth and rethinking my statement in a matter of seconds. I sighed and started over.

“It’s because he’s a jerk,” I explained. “And insensitive. And entitled. He hates me for no reason. And she hates him just as much as me. And... and he’s just bad news, and the two of them getting together is a horrible idea.”

“Hm,” Levi agreed, staring blankly out into the crowd with me. At least I think he agreed. “Well, I had an agenda when I came in here, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to get a drink.”

My head whipped to the side just in time to see him disappearing into the impenetrable wall of people. “Wait, Levi, can’t I-”

My sentence sputtered out before I could finish. _Hold on_. What was I about to say? _Levi, can’t I come with you?_ I bit down on my tongue and turned around. There wasn’t any point. He wouldn’t have heard me in there, no matter how embarrassingly loud I said it. What would I want from being around him, anyway? It was good riddance to him, if anything. As I turned and started back towards the pool, I could already feel the awkward tension that he always stirred up in me starting to wash away.

Someone rushed up behind me and grabbed me by the shoulders. All of a sudden I was being pushed forward and a shrill voice was squealing in my ear.

“Saved your life!”

A startled cry tore free from my throat and my balance had gone completely to shit. The edge of the pool loomed ahead. Before I could even think of reacting, my feet were slipping on the wet patio stones and I was falling. The water rushed up to meet me and I went under with an earsplitting _SPLASH!_

When I came up again, Krista was standing on the edge of the pool, her pretty blue eyes wide with concern and her delicate hands clasped over her mouth in surprise. “Oh my god,” she cried out as soon as my head was out of the water. “A-are you okay? I am so sorry! It was just a joke. I didn’t mean to do that!”

“Whoa. Hey. It’s fine. I’m fine,” I stammered out, wiping chlorinated water away from my eyes.

“Are you sure?” Krista asked, her lower lip starting to tremble.

“Yeah. Definitely.” I nodded and gave her an encouraging smile.

“Okay.” She knelt down on the edge of the pool and smiled. “Well, then... Hello.”

“Hello,” I echoed back to her. I took a second to appreciate Krista in her pink floral bathing suit and her glossy blonde hair tumbling enchantingly to her shoulders. “You look fantastic.”

“Thanks,” she chirped, brushing a golden strand behind her ear. “You... um...”

“It’s okay,” I cut in, nodding down at my scar. “I’m not expecting any compliments.”

“Oh. A-alright.” Krista cocked her head to the side. “You’re just going to stay in there?”

I glanced around at the water surrounding me. “I’m wearing a swimsuit. There’s no reason not to.”

“Reiner told me you were out here and I thought I’d come and surprise you,” Krista said, swinging her feet over the edge to dip them in the water. “I asked Ymir if she wanted to come too, but she said no. I guess she just doesn’t want people to see her in a swimsuit or something. Now that I think about it, it was probably better that it was just me, since I... you know.” She flicked a hand towards me as I continued floating where I had fallen.

“Ymir’s here?” I asked.

“Yeah. She’s my date.”

I blinked, my eyes widening. “Wait. You two are-”

“Yeah,” Krista said with a shy smile. “We’ve been going out for a while, actually. Everyone’s always so surprised when they find out. I wonder why.”

_Probably because you aren’t exactly what people think of when the word lesbian comes to mind._

“Maybe because they like to think they have a chance with you,” I said coyly.

Krista blushed and let out a musical giggle. “Eren!”

“Hey, it’s true. If I had the confidence, I would totally ask you out.”

Krista tossed her hair and melodramatically gasped, placing a hand over her chest like an offended aristocrat. “Well, I’m sorry, kind sir, but I am a faithful woman!”

“Of course you are. I’m not one to make assumptions, milady,” I said, tipping my imaginary hat. Krista laughed again. So did I. Wow, this girl was infectious. No wonder she’d reeled a brick wall like Ymir in so easily.

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod Krista! Eren! Get in the kitchen right now!”

The both of us whirled our heads around towards the sliding glass door. Connie came bursting out of the crowd. He staggered over to us, wide-eyed and panting like a rabid dog.

“Connie!” Krista stood up and fixed her dainty hands around his arms, trying to bolster him as much as she could. “Connie, what is it? Is something wrong?”

“No.” Connie gasped, shaking his head madly. “No. It’s the exact opposite.”

“Then why did you come out here running and screaming?” I asked.

“Someone dared Sasha to eat an entire bag of fries,” he gushed. “It’s insane. You guys are gonna want to see this.”

I bolted out of the pool and made a break for the sliding glass door. Connie was right. I wanted to see that.

 

* * *

 

Watching Sasha choke down a whole bag of uncooked freezer fries was surprisingly entertaining. Almost the entire party had gathered in the kitchen to watch. Almost as soon as I showed up, she spontaneously transformed into a human piranha and blazed through every last frozen potato stick with a whole three minutes left to spare in the twenty-minute time constraint some moron from Trost High had given her. I was in a state of shock for a while afterwards, wondering how the hell she had managed to ingest not only an insane amount of food, but also an insane amount of food that was raw, mealy and rock-hard. She explained during the ensuing half hour that she spent decommissioned on the couch that potatoes had been her favorite food ever since her multiple surgeries had handicapped her absorptive abilities. Apparently they were some kind of nutritional superfood that contained everything a person needed to live. She’d started eating potatoes every day since then and hadn’t been able to stop. Potatoes were potatoes, even if they were frozen. It was still kind of terrifying seeing someone who looked like a living stick figure put away that much food in seventeen minutes.

Pretty soon I found out that Sasha’s fry stunt was only the beginning.

The party rolled onwards in a disorderly fashion. The countless people that I didn’t know started to get into the spirit of things. I clung to whichever support group members I could find. Armin eventually ditched his shirt. Connie spent most of the time acting stoned, even though we all knew he wasn’t. Sasha quickly got back to shoveling down the assorted foods once her frozen fry trauma had worn off. Reiner and Bertolt threw everyone in the support group into the pool at least once, twice for me and four times for Armin. I caught Ymir and Krista making out next to the staircase and managed to hide in the crowd and watch for a while. The same thing happened between Reiner and Bertolt, minus the watching part. Mikasa fought Jean off multiple times, Jean stared at Mikasa’s ass multiple times, and I thought about multiple ways of killing him. Levi managed to evade me for a while longer, but Hanji located the support group quickly enough. She turned out to be a bigger party girl that I had ever thought possible and pushed both Reiner and Bertolt into the pool after they were finished with everyone else. Armin stuck with me for the better part of the night. When he wasn’t with me, he was with Annie. It really didn’t seem like she was enjoying herself that much. But I still saw her smile every now and again when Armin was nearby and they texted each other while sitting face to face. So not even she could have been completely miserable.

I had been so worried about the party that morning. But by the time a few hours had passed at Jean’s, I couldn’t remember what I had been so twisted up about in the first place. I had spent so long on my own that I’d forgotten how much fun these stupid house parties actually were. I didn’t have to worry about making a fool of myself. That was what everyone else was doing. First impressions didn’t amount to anything here. Most of these people would never see me again as it was. And even if they would, I was having too much fun to care.

I didn’t even start to panic until I caught sight of the bottles sitting on the kitchen counter.

It wasn’t like I had been looking for them or anything. I had just come into the kitchen to load up on food to bring back to the support group. And suddenly, they were just... there.

I stopped dead right where I was. My eyes locked onto the bottles. Maybe they weren’t what I thought they were. Jean certainly seemed to be pretentious enough to buy some kind of fancy expensive glass-bottled soda or make some other stupid show of wealth to prove to everyone how cool he was. But when I saw the Miller labels, I knew I was only fooling myself. I didn’t need to hear the minor argument behind the garage door a few seconds later to know what was going on, but I did anyway.

“Are you sure about this?”

It was Jean’s voice. He sounded shaky. Kind of unsure. It was weird, coming from someone as arrogant as him, but he was still unmistakable.

“Yeah. If I wasn’t then why the hell would I have asked my sorority to buy all this crap?” That was Nicole. And she sounded pissed.

The two of them fell silent for a second. I heard plastic bags rustling around and glass bottles clinking against one another. It was a while before Jean spoke again. “Mom and Dad are going to kill us.”

“Mom and Dad aren’t going to find out!” Nicole snapped. “Now shut your whiny little mouth and help me bring these in.”

More shifting around, more glass bottles being loaded into plastic bags. Heavy footsteps were drawing closer to the door. I looked frantically around for a place to hide. I threw myself into the pantry behind me a split second before the door swung open and Nicole swaggered through. Jean was close behind and weighed down with four bags loaded with chiming glass bottles.

“Just put those on the counter,” Nicole commanded. “I’ll sort them out. You go get the rest out of the car.”

Jean sighed and heaved the bags onto the counter, dropping them on the granite with a jarring clank. “I’ve got friends at this party too, Nicole.”

“Yeah. So?”

“They’re in high school. And they might wind up getting into this stuff.”

“And what if they do?” Nicole quipped.

“We’re not going to get away with this if we end up sending a bunch of kids home drunk. I don’t want to have to deal with that kind of liability.”

“Come on, Jean. It’s bound to happen to them at some point in their lives.”

“Nicole, some of them aren’t even fifteen!”

“Then keep them out of the kitchen. I’m not going to risk my social status because you wanted to invite a bunch of underage lightweights.”

Jean sighed heavily. “Fine,” he groaned. I heard the garage door swing open and click shut again. Glass clinked against the countertop as Nicole took the bottles out and arranged them. I held still in the pantry, afraid that she would find me if I so much as breathed. Eventually the clinking stopped. I heard Nicole’s bare feet padding away and disappearing into the thrum of the partygoers outside. I pushed the door open and crept hesitantly out.

And immediately came face to face with Jean.

He stood in the open doorway to the garage, bags looped over both his wrists and his eyes wide. I was too stunned to do anything but watch as anger seeped into his features.

“What. The fuck. Are you doing here?”

“I... um... I...” I spluttered. I’d just come in to get something to eat. Everyone else was outside. I hadn’t meant to hear anything. This was all a misunderstanding.

“You’d better not tell anyone about this, do you hear me?” Jean snapped, taking a step towards me.

I didn’t waste any time. I nodded so fast that my my neck nearly snapped, then spun around and bolted for the door. I raced towards the designated YCSG spot in Jean’s backyard as fast as the crowd on the patio would let me and skidded to a stop at the edge of the pile of towels that were serving as our picnic blanket. I dropped down in the grass at the roots of the tree we’d claimed, my chest rising and falling like a malfunctioning elevator. A second later, Armin appeared overhead, his damp blonde hair hanging down around his face. “Eren?” he asked warily. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah,” I panted, trying to get enough air out to form coherent words. “I just... there was a thing... in the kitchen... it’s fine.”

“What happened in the kitchen?”

Jean’s warning echoed in my head. “N-nothing. Not important.”

“Hey. Weren’t you supposed to bring the plates back with you?”

My eyes flickered over toward the skeleton in a rainbow bikini otherwise known as Sasha. _Shit._ I had completely forgotten.

“Something happened in the kitchen and he had to get out of there,” Armin explained while I caught my breath. No matter how heavily I gasped, I couldn’t get it back under control. God fucking damn it, why did my body always have to give out on me like this?

“That’s alright,” Connie said. “He can always go back, right?” A second later, he was hovering over me next to Armin. “Please, dude. You’ve got to go back in there and get more food,” he muttered to me. “You have no idea what Sasha is like when she’s hungry.”

I nodded, or at least the closest thing to nodding that I could do while lying on my back. “Got it.”

“Good.” Connie disappeared from my field of vision. “He’ll be going back for them in a while. Just give the guy a minute. He looks like he’s had a heart attack or something.”

I sighed heavily and struggled my way into a sitting position. My chest shuddered and I coughed a few times before my breathing finally returned to normal. I felt a hand patting my back. It was Armin.

“What the hell happened in there?” he asked.

I took a deep breath and said, “Jean’s sister brought beer to the party.”

Armin’s mouth dropped open and his eyes widened into cue balls. I felt my stomach bottom out somewhere near my pelvis. _I wasn’t supposed to mention that, was I?_

“Don’t tell anyone,” I blurted, doing my best to fix the already doomed situation.

“Don’t worry. I won’t,” Armin reassured me, giving my shoulder blades a friendly rub. I sat and stared at the grass for a while.

“But do you really think that not bringing this up is going to keep everyone away from it?”

I looked back up to face him. “What do you mean?”

“The YCSG aren’t the only minors at this party. Jean invited a bunch of people from Trost. Remember?”

I felt a block of ice settling inside me. “They really shouldn’t have tried to mix high school with college students.”

“Neither of them thought this through, did they?”

I gazed out at the crowd on the patio, wondering how long it would be until there were empty bottles scattered around and half of them were wasted. I steeled myself and staggered to my feet. “I’d better get those plates back and reload them before the word gets out.”

“Good luck with that,” Armin said. “Chances are, someone’s already snuck in and swiped a few.”

“Then I’ll just go before someone becomes everyone,” I said. I started towards the sliding glass door before Armin could say anything else.

Armin was right. By the time I reached the kitchen, a few of the Sina students had gathered around the counter where Jean and Nicole had been setting out cold ones not five minutes earlier. A chunk of the arrangement was missing, and there were already a few semi-drained bottles hanging around on the counters and floor.

The whole ordeal actually went over pretty easily. I passed by the counter of beers, got what I came for and left. No questions were asked. I ran back to the YCSG spot as fast as the full plate of party snacks, my worn-out lungs and my shitty legs would let me. After that, everything was fine.

Well, it was fine until I noticed a few younger-looking kids smuggling bottles towards the edge of the woods behind Jean’s house. Before the sun had even begun to set, nearly everyone had gotten a taste of Nicole’s little contribution.

This was exactly the kind of thing that I had been worrying about that morning.

For the longest time, I stuck to the towel compilation and the huge, knotted tree where I’d been staying for the past hour. So did the rest of the support group. It wasn’t all that surprising that the kids with cancer had no interest in getting drunk. As if we needed any more possible methods of dying.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Marco, you want a taste of this?”

Marco stared at the bottle Jean offered to him as if he were holding lethal poison in his hand. Since, you know, technically he was. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

“What? It’s a valid question,” Jean replied. “And if you wind up going overboard, you were planning on crashing here anyway.”

“I can’t,” Marco told him flatly. “You should know that better than anyone else.”

I turned just in time to catch the slightly wounded look on Jean’s face before he took the bottle back, murmured a passive “Okay.” and got up to chase after Mikasa again.

I scooted over to Marco. “Jean couldn’t resist, could he?”

He glanced over his freckle-and-scar-ridden shoulder in my direction. “Guess so. It’s not that much of a surprise. I guess it’s just another normal teen thing that he wanted to do. I don’t really have any right to hold him back from it.”

“So what was all that about?”

“What?”

“The ten-second argument you two just had. I was here the whole time.”

“That? Oh, it was nothing.”

“It didn’t sound like nothing.”

“Well, it’s not, really. It’s just... not a big deal. Just Jean trying to make me feel normal.” A faint smile lit up his freckly face. “He does that a lot.”

“So he thinks that letting you get drunk is going to make you forget...” I started, then trailed off and jerked my head towards the crumpled mess of scar tissue that was his body.

“I don’t know,” Marco sighed, shrugging indifferently. “He means well with all of it. I know he does. He just wants me to have fun like everyone else. But... but he has to remember, I’ve already lost a lot of pieces of myself. I can’t afford to mess around with... all of this.” He flicked a hand at the aggregation of drunken idiots wandering around on Jean’s patio.

I took a deep breath and leaned back against the tree. Marco did the same, and the both of us stared out at the rest of the party. Armin joined us a few minutes later, then Mikasa showed up after managing to shake off a now semi-drunk Jean for the sixth time that night. We all watched as the party around us got progressively drunker. Jean eventually came back to us and immediately proceeded to start getting touchy with my sister. I got the feeling that his little taste of the stash had given him a confidence boost that he certainly could have done without.

I didn’t even know what to make of the situation anymore. I had been so mixed up before I got there, then everything had sorted itself out, and now I was mixed up again. I should have seen this coming hours ago. I must have forgotten after the second time Reiner shoved me into the pool that it was still possible for things to go wrong.

By the time it started to get dark outside, I was getting a little sick of hiding.

I inched away from the tree and pulled myself to my feet. “I’m gonna go get something to eat.”

“Right now?” Mikasa mused, squirming around in her spot to face me. “Why?”

“Because I’ve been under this tree for two freakin’ hours and I’m starving,” I responded. “And I don’t think Sasha will be able to handle herself much longer if someone doesn’t suck it up and grab something from the kitchen soon.”

“Do you think that they still have any beer left?” Armin asked.

“Probably. Jean told me Nicole had her sorority sisters bring a ton of the stuff,” Marco pointed out.

“Why are you asking, Armin? You want me to pick some up for you while I’m at it?” I teased.

My friend’s face flushed bright red. “N-no! I was... I was just curious! And if there’s still beer left, someone might try to push it on you. I’ve been warned about parties like this before.”

“Who told you that? Your grandpa?” Jean said brashly, currently draped across Mikasa’s legs. She seemed to be just barely putting up with the contact.

“Shut up, Jean,” Armin snipped, and my sister gave him a decent kick in the back of his head.

I shot a bitch-faced glare in Jean’s direction, then turned back to my friend. “Relax,” I told him. “Like that would ever happen.” I turned and started back towards the patio.

“Eren.”

I looked over my shoulder. Mikasa had her eyes fixated on me, a twinge of concern breaking through her restrained expression. “Yeah?”

“Just be careful,” she said warily.

“I will. It’s a house party, Mikasa. What’s the worst that could happen?” I turned and ran off before she could give me an answer.

Jean’s house had become an insane asylum while I was gone. The sounds of drunken laughter, over-excited screaming and loud, slurry conversation were enough to make my eardrums bleed. There were a few girls dancing on the dining room table. More people than I was comfortable seeing were making out like they had just returned from war. Someone was unlucky enough to have passed out with markers nearby, and someone else had gotten stuck at the top of the stairs and was afraid to come down. I honestly had to wonder if any of these people still qualified as human beings.

After a great deal of pushing, shoving, and stepping over bodies sprawled out on the ground, I made it to the kitchen. Just as Marco had predicted, there were still a ton of bottles hanging around on the counter. Newly replenished, too, judging by the condensation on the glass. Probably still cold. Maybe if I-

Wait. No. That was a horrible idea. I couldn’t.

Jerking my eyes away from the alcohol, I stalked off towards the other side of the kitchen where the counters still held an astounding amount of food. Someone had even made the surprisingly smart decision to order a few pizzas. I snatched a fresh paper plate from one of the stacks that hadn’t been toppled over yet and made quick work of gathering food to bring back to the support group. Once I had what I came for, I turned back around to leave.

And was faced with the beer counter. Again.

I sighed to myself and clenched the edges of the paper plate in my hands. I wasn’t interested. I was not thinking about taking one of those stupid bottles. In fact, I hadn’t even remembered they were there until I turned around and saw them. All the same, I took a step closer. But I still couldn’t do it. It wasn’t legal. It wasn’t even moral. Given the fact that my liver already been severely damaged and for all I knew might still not be functioning at its best, it was probably one of the worst things I could possibly do.

But that didn’t stop me from putting the plate down on the counter and grabbing one.

I gave the entire kitchen a quick once-over. Everyone in the room was preoccupied. Nobody would notice one random kid taking a small fraction from the limitless supply of alcohol. It was probably something they had seen happening all night as it was. I stared down at the bottle in my hand. It was still cold, the condensation pooling around my fingers and dripping over my skin. The top stared up at me like an invitation.

I had only ever tasted alcohol once. My dad had hosted a New Years’ Eve party for a few coworkers back when I was between eleven and twelve, before cancer had come in and ruined everything. Mikasa and I had stumbled across some unopened bottles at around 2 in the morning and decided to give it a try. The taste had nearly made the both of us throw up and we had dumped the rest of the bottle out in the backyard. I wondered if I’d still think it tasted that gross.

Well, there was only one way to find out.

I snapped the top off the bottle and took a sip.

I choked the second the alcohol slid into my mouth. A sour, grainy taste flooded over my tongue and bubbles drifted up my nose and stung the inside. I held down my retching as the beer ran to the back of my throat and disappeared. Once it was gone, I held the bottle out in front of me and stared at it. I took a deep breath, the inside of my nose still burning like a bitch.

_Not too bad._

I finished the bottle before going back to the support group spot. I threw it into the recycling as soon as I was finished. It was surrounded by other emptied-out clones, and I was sure that no one would notice. It was just one beer. No big deal. It it would just be the one, and then I would stop.

But, of course, that was not what actually happened.

Half an hour later, I wandered back into the kitchen. The counter looked almost no different from the way it had been before. I finished off another bottle and hid it in the recycling. I don’t know what kind of lapse in logic I was having at the time. The first bottle might have been affecting me already, or maybe I was just depressed enough not to hold myself back. The party was making me forget everything that had kept me restrained before. Suddenly my brain had switched focus from _Okay, you had your fun, now stop before you cause yourself any more liver damage than you already have_ to _Screw it, you’ve always wondered what being drunk feels like and you might not live that much longer anyway._

The process repeated itself again not too much later. And again. And again.

 _This is for the experience_ , I told myself over and over. _The experience._

_I just want to live a little._

Before I knew it, the world was starting to spin and the sounds echoing through Jean’s house were starting to slur together. I staggered around for a while, not entirely sure where I was going but happy to be on my way there. I was at a party. I had friends here. I wasn’t in a support group, these people were just hanging out with me because I was the coolest person ever. What the hell was leukemia?

“Eren. Hey, Eren.”

I spun around at the sound of a voice behind me. My name was Eren. Were they asking for me?

“Whoa.”

“Heyyyyy...” I stared at the stranger in front of me for a moment, trying to discern which of my amazing friends had decided to seek me out. Blonde coconut shell hair, wide blue eyes, scrawny enough to have wanted to keep his shirt on at the beginning of the party... “Armin.”

Armin blinked, a funny expression coming over his face. “Um, Eren? Are... are you okay?”

I barked out a loud, obnoxious laugh. “Am... am I okay?” I shouted over the music and drunken party noises that were echoing through the house. “Dude... Dude, I am fine. I am SO much better than okay. I am fuckin’ fanTASTIC, man.”

“Uh...” Armin murmured. He looked incredibly weirded out, for some reason. “Okay. Good to know. Everyone was getting worried about you. You know, since you left the tree a while ago and didn’t come back.”

“A while?” I blurted out. “How long is a while?”

“Just... a really long time,” he explained. He seemed to be getting more and more nervous by the second. “Eren, are you sure you’re okay? You seem a little... off.”

“Off?” I said. I started laughing, barely able to contain myself. God, this guy was just so fucking funny! “I- I am not off, Armin. I am on. I am on top of the fucking WORLD.”

“O-okay...” Armin stammered. He reached out towards me, his hands twitching near my shoulders. “The rest of the group was worried about you. We should probably get you back to them. Let them know how... um, great... you’re doing. Alright?”

Without thinking, I stretched my arms out in front of me and wrapped them tightly around him. Armin let out a startled shriek as I dragged him forward and crushed him against me.

“Okay,” I whispered in his ear.

Armin’s hands wormed their way in between us and pushed me back to our former distance. “Okay,” he said breathlessly. “We’re going now.”

“Now?”

“Now.” Armin grabbed me by the wrist and began to pull me through the crowd.

“Hey, Armin, have you found-”

I looked frantically around as another voice broke through the background noise. A girl materialized out of the crowd. Her charcoal-black eyes locked with mine. “Eren!”

Before I knew it, she had rushed over to me and fastened her hands onto my shoulders. “Oh my god. Where have you been? You’ve been missing from the tree for ages. We were looking everywhere for you!”

A smile tugged at my lips and a drowsy giggle slipped through. “Hi, Mikasa.”

Mikasa stared at me as if I were suddenly forty feet tall. She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to the side. “Eren?”

“Are you having fun yet?” I asked excitedly.

Mikasa knitted her eyebrows and glanced over at Armin. “What happened?”

My friend shrugged in response. “I don’t know. I kind of found him like that.”

My sister turned back to me and stared for a while longer. I laughed a little again and asked her why she seemed so serious, we were at a party, this was supposed to be fun. Her face changed the second I opened my mouth. “Eren, are you drunk?!” she demanded.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed so hard that my legs gave out and my sister had to hold me up by the arm.

“I don’t know, maybe!” I screamed, verging on total hysteria.

Once my fit of giggles was over, Mikasa pulled me upright again. She stared at me and shook her head. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with you?” she muttered.

“Well, you could do a lot of things with me. But I don’t really know if-”

Before I could finish, Mikasa turned me around and looped my right arm over her shoulder. “We’re going outside now,” she said flatly. “We’ll sort this out once we get you back to the tree. And you’re not allowed to go back into the kitchen anymore.”

“But all the food is in the kitchen,” I whimpered.

“Yeah. And that’s not all there is,” she snapped. “Armin. Help me out here.” In a second, my best friend was on my left, taking my arm and winding it around the back of his neck. I sighed heavily and gave up, letting the two of them pull me forward and steer me towards the sliding glass door. They escorted me past the pool and sat me down on the edge of the patio, making sure I was in full view of the YCSG tree. I saw the rest of the support group hanging out around the roots. A few of them were looking at me. I smiled and gave them a friendly little wave.

Mikasa stepped in front of me and stared down at me, her hands on her knees. “Wait here,” she commanded. “Do not move from this spot. You hear me?”

Even when my brain was blurred with alcohol, I knew better than to protest. I nodded and watched as she spun on her heel and walked back to the tree. Armin followed closely behind. A minute later, the look I had seen on her and Armin’s faces earlier showed up on the rest of the support group members. All of them were staring at me now. Something told me I shouldn’t wave at them again.

Great. She was telling them what had happened. And now I was in trouble. That was just fan-fucking-tastic.

“Well. Fancy seeing you again, brat.”

My head automatically whipped around towards the source of the voice. I hadn’t even needed to turn around to know who it had come from. I just wanted to see his face again.

“Hi, Levi,” I giggled.

He had snuck up behind me without so much as a whisper of warning. But considering my current state, it wasn’t too much of a surprise. He probably could have driven up behind me in a fucking bulldozer and still managed to sneak up on me. He slunk out of the crowd and stepped off the patio, standing directly in front of me. He stared down at me, his face blank as usual. It was kind of funny. I was usually the one who was looking down at him all the time. I couldn’t stop myself from giggling again. That fluttery feeling he brought up inside me just tickled so much.

Levi cocked an eyebrow at me. “What’s all this about?”

“I-I don’t know,” I giggled, a smile breaking out on my face. “I just feel... weird.”

Levi studied me for while longer, then blinked as if he’d had a sudden realization. “Shit,” he murmured. He bent over to look me in the eyes. “You really shouldn’t have done that.”

“Done what?” I asked, staring blankly up at him like a lost puppy.

Levi sighed dismissively and sank down onto the patio stones next to me. “Come on, brat. Don’t even try to fuck with me like this. You practically have the word _drunk_ written across your forehead.”

I laughed. “I saw that happen to someone inside.”

“I saw it too,” Levi said, staring out across the backyard and avoiding my gaze. “That poor moron is certainly going to have an interesting morning tomorrow.”

I giggled again. “Yeah. Imagine, he wakes up, and then it’s all like, oh my god, what happened to my face?!”

Levi sighed again. “That was really stupid of you, brat. I know you’re a teenager, and your kind can be pretty stupid every now and again, but I honestly thought you’d know better.”

“Better than what?”

“Never mind. It’s too late now anyway.”

I turned and gazed at the side of Levi’s face. It looked so strange in the half-light of Jean’s backyard. I wished I could see all of it at once. He would probably look amazing out here under the stars.

“Hey, Levi?”

“Yeah?” he replied. He didn’t turn towards me. I held back a protesting whine and searched my brain something to say.

“Are you... having a good time?”

“Well, as far as parties go, this one isn’t too bad,” he said flatly, stretching his arms out behind him and leaning back. I hoped he didn’t notice me staring at the way the dim light glanced off his curved, perfect body. “But honestly, no. I’m really not one for social gatherings. I’m here for Hanji’s sake, really. You should see her right now. She’s drunk off her ass. Even more than you.”

“So you’re taking her home?”

Levi turned his head to look at me. “Yeah. I don’t think she’ll get back any other way.”

My breath caught in my throat as my eyes focused in on his face. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was like something out of a dream. His skin seemed like it was glowing in the dark and his raven hair was still tousled with pool water. I studied the way it swept  gracefully over his forehead, just barely brushing his eyes.

His eyes. Holy shit, his eyes.

I had never seen them like this before. They looked different, for some reason. I leaned in to get a closer look. I was just barely able to pick out the small flecks of bright cobalt blue that scattered over his irises and mixed with the steely grey that I was so used to seeing. So his eyes weren’t really grey at all. They were blue.

An odd, fluttery feeling began to build up in my chest. “Levi?” I said, my voice just barely above a whisper.

“What is it, Eren?” he responded. I felt my heart shudder in my chest. Eren. Not brat, Eren. He’d said my name.

I started leaning in closer. Our faces were just inches apart. What would happen if I got rid of a few? Or all of them? What if...

Suddenly I felt my stomach flip over. Before I knew it, I had pitched forward and was puking into the grass.

Levi tensed up next to me and jerked his feet up onto the patio stones. I could feel his eyes burning into my back as I convulsed on my hands and knees. More acid, beer and half-digested food came spilling out of my mouth. I coughed uncontrollably, silently begging for it to end.

A hand suddenly appeared on my back, right in between my shoulder blades. It rubbed gently over my skin. “Hey. Easy, there. Breathe.”

I had to cough up another good splatter of vomit before it was finally over. Once the retching had stopped, the hand on my back moved to my shoulder and was quickly joined by another. Then they were tightening, and I was being pulled to my feet. Levi turned me to face him. I looked down at him, my face blazing with embarrassment.

“L-Levi...”

“No,” he said, holding up a hand to shut me up. I obeyed without question. “You’ve had enough for now. You’re coming with me.” Before I could respond, Levi spun me around again, looping his arm around my waist and throwing one of mine over his shoulders. I freaked out for a millisecond over the fact that I was touching him, he wasn’t wearing a shirt and my uncovered skin was directly on his. Then reality smacked me in the face. I had just thrown up in front of him. The next logical step for me would have been to leave as quickly as possible and hope that a few weeks from now we could pretend it never happened. But of course, he was holding me captive by the waist and I was too listlessly drunk to struggle, so there was no hope of me escaping. I didn’t even bother to resist him. I was still sober enough to realize that there wouldn’t be any point.

Levi led me back into the house and towards the staircase. I staggered my way up, leaning on him every step of the way. He didn’t seem to care. He just continued to act as my crutch and dragged me down the hallway, only taking his hand away from my wrist to open one of the doors. I had just enough time to catch sight of a clean, blue-tiled bathroom before I was dumped unceremoniously on the floor.

Levi swung the door shut and flicked the light on. He stared condescendingly down at me. I stared back, not sure what else there was to do.

“Stay here. I’m going to tell the others where you are.” And just like that, he was gone.

I stared at the door long after it had been slammed shut, wishing that Levi was still there. I didn’t know why. It was the same feeling that I’d had over and over the summer when I had my operation. Only this time, it was all mixed up with something else. I couldn’t figure out a name for it, but it was there and so strong that it drowned out almost everything else in my head. My face felt like it was on fire, and all of my internal organs felt like they were being attacked by moths. And Levi seemed to be the one who had caused all of it.

My vision started to defocus while I stared at the door waiting for Levi to come back. My eyelids began to feel heavy. They were going to fall closed. I could feel it, and there wasn’t a single thing I could do to stop it. I tried to fight it anyway. I wanted to stay awake until he came back. I wanted to see him again. But I couldn’t hold it back forever. As I drifted off, I thought back to when we were outside. I had no idea what I was thinking when I had been leaning towards him. Maybe I hadn’t been thinking at all. But there was something else. It didn’t seem all that important, just a faint little feeling that refused to go unnoticed. And there was no way in hell that I was going to admit it by the time I blacked out.

But in that very second before I had thrown up, I had kind of wanted to kiss him.

 

* * *

 

When I finally regained consciousness, I was curled up on the bath mat of Jean’s guest bathroom and wrapped in an oversized pool towel. I craned my neck to do a 360 of the floor, hoping that I would catch sight of a pair of pale, slender legs. But there weren’t any. Once again, I was all alone.

I tightened the towel around me and squeezed my eyes shut again. Fuck,my head was pounding like a bitch. Why did I feel like this? There was no way that I could have drank that much. _I could probably just stay here for a while longer until it wears off,_ I decided.

Apparently, my stomach had other ideas.

Not even a minute after I had settled back into the rug, I felt an uncomfortable lurch in my guts. I quickly threw the towel aside, scrambled my way to the toilet and threw the lid open before I sprayed drunk vomit all over Jean’s bathroom and gave him another reason to hate me. _As if he even had one in the first place_ , I thought as I purged out whatever alcohol was left in my system.

It took me a while to empty myself out. I clung to the rim of the toilet until my stomach couldn’t squeeze anything else out of me and the violent retching receded into sporadic little shudders. I sank back from the toilet and ripped a good deal of toilet paper off the roll nearby. I wiped my face off, disposed of the acrid-smelling mess and dragged myself up to the sink. I was in the middle of washing my mouth out and lapping at the water to ease my headache when the door swung open again.

“So, I see you’re finally awake,” Levi said.

I shut the tap off and turned to look at him, pain pulsing through my brain at the sudden movement. “Yeah,” I replied, hissing through my teeth.

He studied me carefully and crossed his arms over his bare chest. He had ditched his swim trunks for a pair of shorts, but his shirt was still missing from the equation. “Are you feeling any saner now, or are you still a drunken lunatic?”

“Sane, I think,” I muttered. I leaned against the sink and pressed my hands into my eyes, my fingers knotting in my hair. “Fuck. My head...”

“Serves you right, brat,” Levi snipped.

I squinted into my palms. “What?”

“That was a really stupid thing you did.” Levi took a step towards me, backing me up against the sink and pulling my hands away from my face. His eyes delved into mine like needles. “You are such a fucking idiot.What were you thinking, going and trying to get wasted when you’ve already had a fraction of your liver taken out? You’re sick enough as it is. You could have gotten alcohol poisoning or killed yourself or something. You’re lucky that a stupid hangover is all that you have to deal with.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but all of a sudden it was as if I had forgotten how words work. The bathroom fell silent. I felt something in the pit of my chest twisting up into a hard, icy knot as Levi’s eyes held onto mine. Pins and needles in my nerves pricked at my surgical scar, as if it needed to remind me that it was there.

“I-I’m sorry,” I choked.

“Don’t apologize to me,” Levi snapped. “You should be apologizing to yourself, if anything. You just risked your life, brat. I’m not sure that you realize that.”

“I do. I-I know how dangerous it is, and I-”

“Then why did you do it?”

“I... I don’t know.”

Levi stared silently at me for a while longer, then sighed and shook his head. “Stupid fucking brat...” he murmured, letting go of my wrists and backing away. I rubbed gently at the places where his fingers had locked around my arms. I’d be surprised if I didn’t wind up with a nice set of bruises there. I crossed the small room to the glass wall of the shower, leaned back against it and sank down to the floor. Standing only made the throbbing in my skull worse.

Levi leaned over the sink, took a paper cup from the dispenser on the counter and turned the cold tap on. “It stinks in here. Did you throw up again?”

“Yeah,” I admitted, my face burning red. “Look, Levi, I-I’m sorry about what happened outside...”

“Hey, no need to be embarrassed. It’s not like seeing you puke is anything new to me.”

I looked up at him, my eyes widening just the slightest bit. Was that what I had been apologizing for, or was it...

My thought died out when I noticed the tiny black wing on Levi’s shoulder.

“Hey, Levi... how long has that been there?”

Levi shut the tap off and glanced over his shoulder at me. “How long has what been where?”

“The... that wing,” I mused. “On your shoulder.”

“Oh. You mean this thing,” he said, brushing over the tiny black image with his fingertips. It was a simplified design, each feather its own individual shape with narrow outlines of Levi-color in between. The outermost feathers were spread out over his shoulder, and the base was centered as if the wing were growing out of the left side of his spine. It couldn’t have been more than two or three inches long, but I was still surprised I hadn’t noticed it before.

“Yeah. I didn’t know you had it.”

“It was just something I got a few years ago when I graduated high school,” Levi explained. He turned around and knelt down next to me. “It was probably a stupid waste of money. Every time I look back on it, I always wonder why I’d decided to get it. I mean, I don’t regret it or anything, but...” He shrugged and handed me the cup of water. “Drink that. The faster you rehydrate, the faster the hangover will wear off.”

I did as I was told and gratefully sucked it down. “Why did you decide to keep it? Does it mean something to you or anything?”

Levi took the cup back from me and turned back toward the sink. I heard him sigh before turning the tap back on. “No, not really. I think I’m just scared of how much I’ve heard tattoo removal hurts.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I got the vague feeling that he was lying. But I knew just about as much about that notion as I did about the way he made my nerves start buzzing every time he came near me. I decided to push the thought away.

“Well... it’s nice.”

Levi turned back around and handed me back the refilled cup. “Thanks,” he said softly.

I drank the next cup just as quickly as I had the first and handed it back to him. While he refilled it again, another wave of pain coursed through my skull. I curled up against the shower and dug the heels of my hands into my eyes. “How long was I out for?” I asked through my teeth.

“About five hours,” Levi replied flatly.

“Five?” I blurted out in disbelief. “How did I even... what time is it?”

“About three in the morning.”

I groaned and bumped my head back against the shower door. “Oh, god. Mikasa is going to flip her shit...”

“Oh, believe me, she already has. She should be calmed down by now, though. I think she’s fallen asleep, actually.”

“She fell asleep?”

“Obviously,” Levi scoffed. “She’s staying the night. Your little blonde buddy’s ride showed up at eleven like he had planned, and she was supposed to go with him, but she wasn’t about to leave you stranded here.” He paused for a second to hand me the next cup. “You’re pretty lucky to have someone as good as she is, Eren.”

A jolt of electricity ran down my spine as he dropped my name. “Did she at least get a place to sleep?”

“Um, have you even seen this house? Jean has two guest rooms, not to mention his parents’ room, which is empty, and the most comfortable couch on the goddamn planet.” He handed me another refilled cup. “She’s stowed away with Hanji in one of the guest rooms.”

“Hanji’s still here?”

“Yeah. I’m her ride home, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” I drained the last cup of water that he’d given me and stared down at it after I was finished. A pang of guilt clawed at my heart. I’d made Mikasa stay the night at Jean’s house. As if I hadn’t already made it easy enough for her to get taken advantage of. Well, at least she’d managed to avoid sharing a room with him. And hopefully Hanji wasn’t so drunk that she wouldn’t wake up if Jean tried to sneak in.

Wait. Levi was Hanji’s ride home. She was still here, and so was he. He could have left at any time. So why did he...

“Oh, I almost forgot. You’re probably going to need this.”

I looked up a split second before Levi flung a shitty plastic sports bag at my face. I scrambled to catch it. It was my party pack. I ripped the drawstring open to see that all my clothes were still inside, just as relatively clean and intact as when I had put them there that morning. “Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t mention it,” Levi deadpanned in response. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to get some sleep. The shower’s all yours if you can figure out how to work it. We’re in the fourth door on the right side of the hallway.”

“Okay,” I said, staggering to my feet. Then, all of a sudden, I froze. “Wait. We?”

By the time the words were out of my mouth, Levi had already walked out and shut the door behind him. I sighed and started stripping off my swim trunks. Fine. If he wanted to be that way, he could.

After a quick shower and use of a few unopened toothbrushes that happened to be stowed in the cabinet behind the mirror, I stuffed my used trunks into my party pack and made my way out into the hallway. Everything was dark and the house had gone deathly silent. It was kind of eerie in comparison to the loud, lively party that had been taking place up until a few hours earlier. I found the door that Levi had told me about and sneaked my way in, shutting it softly behind me. There were faint beams of moonlight streaming in past the blinds, giving me just enough visibility to keep me from bumping into the beds and waking up whoever happened to be sleeping there. There were three of them, a double bed pushed into the corner and a twin-sized trundle with the lower mattress pulled out. The floor mattress happened to be the only one left open. There were two shapes hiding under the blankets of the larger bed, one sprawled out considerably more than the other. I guessed that the sprawler was drunk-off-her-ass Hanji and the balled-up lump next to her was Levi. It was certainly small enough to be him. I crept over to the floor mattress and pushed the sheets back, crawling in as silently as I could.

“Hey. Finally decided to join the party, huh?” A voice whispered.

My eyes snapped open and my head jerked sideways to look up at the bed above me. A shadow was propped up on the pillows and looking down at me. I caught a flash of silver-blue in the dim light.

“Levi?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Did you think I was going to leave Hanji drunk and unattended?”

“No, I guess not, but I thought you were Mikasa.”

“Nope. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Then who’s...” My eyes drifted over to the double bed and caught sight of the end of a cranberry-red scarf sticking out over the top of the blankets. I hadn’t even known she’d brought it with her. “Oh.”

“Hanji tends to be a little cuddly when she’s drunk,” Levi told me, disappearing back over the edge of his bed. “Well, I think we both need some rest in the worst way possible. Sleep tight, brat.” And with that, he rolled himself up under the blankets and went silent.

It took longer than I would have liked to fall asleep. The butterflies inside me were making things a little bit difficult.

 

* * *

 

“Eren.”

I had no clue whose voice it was that was whispering my name like that. I sighed and wriggled around underneath the sheets on my floor mattress. Whatever they wanted, they could wait. I’d had a rough night, and I didn’t want to deal with life just yet.

But that didn’t stop the voice from whispering again.

“Eren.”

I rolled over and cracked my eyes open a slit. That whisper was starting to sound a little weird. I had never heard this one before. I dug through my memory of all the whispers I had ever heard in my life. Mikasa, Armin once or twice, my parents, people from middle school who probably didn’t even remember my name anymore...

“Eren.” The whisper was really starting to sound more like a purr now. “Wake up.”

A little thrill ran down my spine. I knew whose voice that was. My eyes flew open to see a shadow clinging to the edge of the day bed next to mine, leaning over my mattress and looking down at me.

“Levi?” I murmured sleepily.

“No, brat. It’s the fucking Easter Bunny.”

Yeah, it was definitely Levi.

“Why are you awake? Didn’t we just...” I asked and trailed off, reaching up to rub at my eyes. I sat up and braced myself, sure that the sudden movement would resurrect the violent throbbing in my skull. But, miraculously, it never did.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Levi whispered, balling up his pillow underneath his head and looking down at me with his watchful eyes. “Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine now.” I blinked slowly as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I could just barely make out his face. It seemed different somehow. Softer. Although I couldn’t really be sure why.

“Good,” Levi murmured. He slipped down over the side of the day bed and landed gracefully next to me on the floor mattress. “I was hoping you would be. Maybe sleeping it off for five hours did the trick.”

“M-maybe...” I breathed. Oh god, he was so close to me. My heart was starting to slip into its little Levi-induced seizure, my blood rushing in my ears. What was he doing? Why was he doing this? And weren’t Hanji and Mikasa in the same room as us?

I glanced over. The comforter was pulled taut over the mattress of the double bed in the corner. Empty.

_What the...._

“Hey, Eren...”

My head whipped back around to face Levi. He inched towards me, gently pushing me down onto the mattress. Oh my god. That voice. His whispering had turned into purring, it was unmistakable now.

“Y-yes... Levi?” My breath was coming too fast to form a coherent sentence. I had my raging pulse to thank for that. If only the way he said my name didn’t turn me on so much.

_Wait. Did I seriously just think that?_

Levi’s hand reached out and glided over my hips, coming to rest at the small of my back. He leaned forward, and I instinctively fell back onto the pillows. And then he was on top of me, his legs straddled on either side of my body, his hands on my chest and his mouth hovering tantalizingly over mine. Another crackle of electricity ran down my spine, only this time it headed straight between my legs.

“Am I turning you on, brat?”

My answer came out in a cracked, breathy whisper. “Y-yes.”

And then I lost it. My arms flung themselves around his strong, sinewy body, my fingers digging into his hair and pulling his lips down to meet mine. Levi’s mouth opened in a sudden gasp and I took the initiative of sliding my tongue in first. I fought my way into his mouth and stayed for a few good seconds before he started pushing back. Our bodies pressed together on top of the mattress, our limbs tangled and our tongues dancing around each other with hot, sensual licks. My hands somehow found their way underneath Levi’s shirt, against his bare skin, then I was clawing madly at the fabric and pulling it over his head. He separated from me just long enough to let me tear his shirt away from him. Then I threw it at the bed in the corner and we were going at it again. Levi’s mouth moved away from mine and reappeared seconds later at the base of my throat, kissing my skin and grazing his teeth against the throbbing pulse point in my neck. I tilted my head back, a breathless groan slipping out of my mouth. “L-Levi...” I moaned, my brain turning to static.

“Eren,” he whispered against my skin, running his hands over my back and raking his nails on my shirt. “Eren. Oh, god, Eren...”

His arms tightened around me. I felt him starting to straighten up, and he lifted my semi-emaciated body with his as if it were nothing. I fastened my legs around his hips and ground against him as he pressed me close to his chest, stood up and lifted me off the mattress. A second later he was dropping me down on the double bed, pushing me back and crawling on top of me. Our lips found each other again. Our hands started clawing and tearing at each others’ clothes. I got lost in the smell of Levi’s skin, the softness of his hair, the sound of his voice whispering to me, saying my name over and over.

One of his hands slid underneath the top of my shorts and ghosted seductively across my skin. My eyes fluttered open and I was staring at Levi’s face, his razored blue-grey eyes clouded with lust. He gazed inquisitively at me, as if his eyes were asking some huge, unspoken question.

“Yes,” I breathed against him. “Oh god, Levi, yes.”

My mouth fastened over his again, and his hand slid further, brushing across my hips and picking at the zipper of my shorts.

“Eren,” he moaned. I drank in the sound like it was the nectar of the gods.

I heard a muted _zzzip_ and my shorts loosened up. Levi’s fingers tugged at them, his nails raking across my skin and drawing out another cry from me.

“Eren.”

His hand coasted down from my hips and swept his fingertips across my inner thigh.

_Oh god please stop teasing me and just do it already oh my god I am so hard it hurts just do it please...._

“Eren.”

Okay, that did not sound right.

Suddenly the imagery was gone. Instead everything had turned a slightly reddish shade of black. Levi’s skin against mine was replaced with the restraining feeling of sheets that had been kicked into the equivalent of a straitjacket. However, the annoying, awkwardly sensitive feeling between my legs had stayed exactly where it was.

_Great._

“Eren, wake up.”

That was Levi’s voice. And he was not happy.

I cracked my eyes open a slit. “Hnnnn....” I grumbled in reply. Well at least he knew I wasn’t in a coma now.

Wait. Could he see my-

Oh, for _fuck’s_ sake.

“It’s ten in the morning, brat. Hanji’s up and your sister wants to leave soon.”

I squirmed around in the sheets, trying to rearrange the mess into some kind of position that would cover up the tent I was pitching in my pants. “Nn... I-I’m awake now. I’m up,” I mumbled as quickly as I could.

“Good.” Without warning, someone grabbed my shoulder and rolled me roughly onto my back. “Then get your ass out of bed. We’re leaving in half an hour.”

My eyes went wide as soon as they registered Levi’s face.

_Levi, don’t look down, please whatever you do, don’t look down...._

“Y-yes, sir!” I blurted out. _Sir? Whoa. Where the fuck did that come from?_

“Alright. Meet the rest of us downstairs.” Then Levi walked out the door, slamming it shut behind him. I sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a heavy, tired sigh. Thankfully the blush that was blazing steadily into my face was draining some of the blood out of my dream boner. I really hoped that no one had seen it when they all conveniently woke up before me.

It took a ridiculous amount of effort to untangle myself from the sheet cocoon that I had somehow woven around myself in my sleep, and then even more making sure that all traces of my subconscious makeout session with Levi were gone. I sat down on the edge of the bed where Levi had thrown me the night before. Or where I had imagined he’d thrown me. I didn’t even want to think about it anymore. But of course, I did anyway. I slumped over on the bed and raked my fingers through my hair, trying to wake myself up.

I had just dreamed about Levi and woken up hard. Naturally, there was only one thing that was running through my head at the moment.

What the hell was I thinking?  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND NOW WE SEE WHY THIS FANFICTION IS RATED M.  
> I hope this turned out to be a good chapter. I spent almost two weeks editing it.  
> I'm pretty sure that this is one of the most unlikely things that could possibly happen to someone with any sort of active cancer. I don't actually have any idea, since I'm a relatively healthy person and my social life is nowhere near this interesting. But most of that is my fault, honestly. Mainly because I spend most of my time writing stuff like this.  
> Well, I hope everyone liked the chapter. You know the drill. Kudos, comment, subscribe, post to my tags, whatever you feel like doing.  
> Hopefully I'll be a little better about updating next time.  
> See you next chapter.


	10. A Crushing Realization

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EREN JAEGER!  
> It's our favorite titan-shifting German boy with anger issues's birthday, so I decided it was finally time that I post another chapter for this sorry mess of words and feelings. I've been getting multiple requests for a new chapter anyway (meaning I got two). Just want to reassure you all that this awkward gay cancer party is far from over. And for the main protagonist's birthday, I'm posting a new chapter.  
> Now I've got to get to work. It's almost 11 pm, and I have to post this before it isn't March 30th anymore.  
> TIME FOR TUMBLR PLUGS.  
> My blog is asking-appelia (actually the-angstiest-author). Go follow it. Ask me things. I have anon enabled, and you can say whatever you want.  
> If you want to post anything related to this fanfic, make sure to tag it "fic: the monsters inside us" or "fic: tmiu." I keep checking the tags and all that ever comes up is stuff that I've posted. No pressure, thought. You can take your time.  
> Alright, that's more than enough of that.  
> Story time.

 

 

As shocking as it may seem, Jean’s disaster of a party did not keep me from coming back to the support group on Tuesday.

Sunday was definitely not what I had been expecting. That wasn’t really saying much, since I was so thrown by the invitation that I hadn’t been expecting anything in the first place. All the same, getting drunk, throwing up in front of my ex-nurse, passing out and having kinky dreams while sleeping over at my worst-enemy-thus-far’s house was the last thing on my mind that day. At least I was lucky enough for Jean to have scheduled the party for a weekend that my dad was on one of his usual short-term business trips. No one had to know that I’d gotten underage wasted and wound up spending the night at Jean’s other than the people who were there to see it.

Which, incidentally, included Levi.

Despite my promise to Mikasa on Thursday, Levi wound up being the one to bring us home. Hanji was passed out in the passenger seat the entire time, and my sister was too worn out from dodging Jean’s advances the night before to put up much of a fight. Still, no one spoke much on the way to our house. I didn’t even give Levi directions. Not that I had done a spectacular job of it the first time, or that he needed them. He seemed to have memorized the route when he drove us home from Trost a few days before.

I was ready to fall to pieces when he dropped us off and pulled out of the driveway.

Sunday night dragging on into Monday morning had been one of the most humiliating stretches of time that I had ever experienced. I had effectively risked my own life for no apparent reason, then became Levi’s charity case for the rest of the night. I couldn’t believe that I had been stupid enough to do what I had done. Then after I had fucked myself up and passed out, I’d left him to clean up the mess that I had made. At least cleaning was one of the things that Levi did best.

And then there was that stupid little stunt I had pulled on the patio outside. I’d had something in mind when it was happening. The only problem was that I couldn’t seem to remember what. Whatever the reason, I still didn’t think I would ever be able to face Levi again after that night.

Mikasa hadn’t had much of a better time than I had. Jean had noticed my absence mere minutes after Levi had left me to sleep in the bathroom upstairs (I later found out that the towel I woke up with came from him). The bastard immediately began trailing Mikasa like a shark tracking down a bleeding seal. He was flirting with her whenever he had the chance, offering her drinks, trying to get her alone and firing an infinite amount of other meaningless bullshit at her. Finally she got tired and agreed to sit with him under the YCSG tree. The rest of the group gradually gathered with them to avoid the drunken stupor, and that eventually turned into a support-group-wide game of spin the bottle. She’d been kind of surprised with how comfortable the other members were with each other, even though most of the kissing between the others wasn’t even on the mouth in the first place. She’d managed to will the bottleneck away from herself for a while, and the group had been willing to give her some slack since she was new.

Long story short, she kissed Jean.

Once. On the cheek. And that was it. He’d tried to convince her to sleep in his room when he found out she’d be staying over, but that was one of the several lines she wouldn’t allow him to cross. Once she’d finished telling me, I made a mental note to set Jean on fire the next time I saw him.

Despite all the bullshit we had suffered, we were back at Trost Regional Hospital by the time 3 PM arrived the next day. We were starting to get attached to that ragtag group of quirky adolescent cancer victims, whether we liked it or not. We were now a part of the support group, and the support group was a part of us. No amount of public embarrassment could change that.  

Jean’s party was the first event that we attended with the Youth Cancer Support Group outside of the hospital, and it was far from the last. The following Thursday, Reiner mentioned after four that he was going to a movie with Bertolt and Annie. Armin had jumped onto the bandwagon and dragged Mikasa and me along with him. The next week Marco invited the whole support group over to his house for something called Bad Movie Night, which involved everybody gathering in his living room, watching a shitty excuse for a film and making fun of it all the way through. I wound up getting sucked into that one as well, since Jean had gotten Mikasa’s cell number from an anonymous source (probably Hanji) and refused to stop spamming her until she agreed. Bad Movie Night turned out to be a serious improvement over Jean’s party, save for a few more of his sleazy passes at my sister. Contrary to the promise that I had made earlier, I never did succeed in setting him on fire.

True to Bertolt’s word, Jean threw another party two weeks after the first. He promised the group that Nicole and her friends would keep their distance from this one. The second party led to another Bad Movie Night, then hanging out with Connie and Sasha at the Erhmich Mall, then half the group gathering to hang out at Armin’s, and before I knew it everyone was all buddy-buddy, including me.

And all along, there was Levi.

I didn’t see him nearly as much as I saw the rest of the support group. Most of the time I spent with him was at the meetings, and even then we didn’t have very much time to ourselves. He sometimes came to the beyond-the-hospital gatherings, especially the Bad Movie Nights, since everyone said his commentary was the best. But other than that, I never saw him. Not that I expected to. Unlike me, he had a life outside of the support group. He had a full-time job as an LPN at Trost and took online classes at night to get ahead in his program at Sina, whatever it was that he happened to be studying for. And he had to have friends other than Hanji and the rest of the support group. When he wasn’t busy with other things, he was probably seeing them. Right?

Even with the constant rationalization running through my head, the stupid spells still struck me whenever he was around. They never went away. I could never quite figure out what they were. All I knew was that every time Levi was near I suddenly felt as though I’d inhaled a cloud of hyperactive moths. Also that every time he said something personal about me I started blushing, regardless of whoever was around to hear it. And that I suffered from minor heart palpitations every time he used my real name in a sentence instead of that affectionate little pet name he had given me the summer before. Eren had never seemed like such a special word until Levi started saying it.

I had no idea why. Either that, or I did and I wasn’t ready to admit it to myself yet. But I wasn’t about to admit that little factoid to myself, either.

The month of July gradually faded into August, and as the days started growing hot and sticky, I finally decided that the others in the YCSG had done enough hosting for me. A short conversation over one of our half-assed dinners assured me that Mikasa was thinking the same thing. I wasn’t planning on asking for permission from our dad. Chances were he wouldn’t be home while our friends were over, since he pretty much never was. But Mikasa asked anyway. And, unexpectedly, he said yes. Even more unexpectedly, he asked us if we wanted to have anyone stay over, then mentioned Armin’s name in passing. I had no idea how the hell my Dad even knew who Armin was, or how he had found out in the first place (I could always trust Mikasa to keep no secrets from anyone.). I pretended not to be shocked by the revelation and conceded to take as much socialization as he was willing to offer me.

So that was how I ended up scrambling around in the kitchen at 6:44 PM on the second Wednesday of August.

Mikasa traipsed in from the hallway, her phone in her hand. “Hey, is the stuff ready yet? Armin just said he’s on his way over.”

“Almost. It just needs another minute or two,” I said. I pulled the oven open and glanced inside. The Toll House Frozen Pre-made I’m Too Fucking Inept At Baking To Do This Myself cookies still looked a little soft in the middle. Mikasa had been smart enough to ask everyone else to eat something substantial before showing up so we wouldn’t traumatize them with our depressing home life. But Sasha was invited, and there was no way in hell this operation would succeed without snacks.

“Well, the others shouldn’t be getting here for a while, and I don’t think Armin is going to mind,” Mikasa said, scrolling through the text messages on her phone. “And if they’re still not ready by then, we have the popcorn.” She nodded toward the massive saucepan of unflavored popcorn on the stove and the assortment of spices and toppings that we had compiled out of the pantry. She’d also been smart enough to think of a popcorn-flavoring bar. God, why was Mikasa always better than me at this kind of thing?

“Good,” I said, shutting the oven again. “Can you watch these? I’m going to set up the Xbox in the basement.”

“Sure.”

And with that, I dashed down the stairs, leaving Mikasa to make sure that the snacks didn’t get fucked up and all our friends made it to the house in one piece. A few minutes later, while I was balls-deep in wires and miscellaneous controller pieces, I heard the doorbell go off and footsteps running around over my head. Armin’s voice drifted down to me from the upstairs hallway. Mikasa said something that sounded like “He’s in the basement.” A minute later, I heard the sounds of broken-in sneakers scampering down the basement stairs.

I glanced over my shoulder to see my friend’s smiling, blonde-framed face. “Hey, Armin.”

“Hi,” he replied, cautiously approaching me in my compromised state. “What’re you doing?”

“Setting up some games,” I said. “Or trying to.”

Armin made a face and sat down next to me. “You need some help?”

“That would be great. Thanks. We should probably start by untangling me before Jean and his Instagram show up.”

We both set to work on separating me from the rat’s nest of wires that I’d made next to the TV. By the time the doorbell rang again, we’d managed to straighten everything out, separate all the wires and plug the right ones into the right places. I’d never known what a good organizer Armin was. Luckily the panic-disentangle that we had accomplished wasn’t even necessary. The next person to show up was Connie with Sasha and a plate of brownies along for the ride. The potato destroyer attacked the cookies that Mikasa had just taken out of the oven, then Jean and Marco arrived while the five of us were picking out the games with the best multiplayer modes. Bertolt and Reiner showed up not much later, with Annie tagging along in the back of Reiner’s Neon. I hoped she hadn’t had to suffer through too much of their PDA during the ride over.

Everyone crammed themselves into the basement, and the games began.

Mario Kart went first, then we had to stop after Jean ragequitted for the second time. Then came Mortal Kombat, and everyone was entertained by how squeamish Armin got during the slow-motion detail shots. It was after the fifth melee battle in Super Smash Brothers that it happened.

The doorbell rang.

At first I wasn’t sure if anyone else had heard it other than me. I glanced over my shoulder at Mikasa. “Was that the door?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said with a bemused shrug. “Did you invite anyone else?”

“I don’t _know_ anyone else,” I replied with a touch of sass. “Did you?”

“No,” she answered. Conveniently, Annie decided to make her decisive move while I was distracted. I turned back to the screen just in time to see Meta Knight getting fried by a blast from Samus’s cannon. I dropped the controller and let out a loud, colorful stream of swear words while Annie laughed in that creepy, silent way of hers.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “I’ll go see who it is. I’m out of the game anyway.”

No one objected as I stood up and walked out of the basement. The sounds of the gameplay faded behind me as I neared the front door. It was already dark outside. I wondered how long we’d been holed up in the basement as I reached the door and opened it.

“Well, this is a surprise. I was honestly expecting your sister to come up instead of you.”

I blinked, half-sure that I was hallucinating. If Connie hadn’t put weed in those brownies he had brought, then that meant Levi was standing outside of my front door.

“Oi, brat. You gonna quit staring and say something?”

I opened my mouth to obey him, then shut it again and continued gawking. I didn’t have anything to say. How the hell had he gotten here?

“Hi, Eren!” a cheery voice called out from the driveway. I looked over Levi’s shoulder to see a little navy sedan parked behind Reiner’s car. Hanji was hanging out of the open second-row door, tugging a plastic-covered platter out of the backseat. I should have known it was her that had dragged him here.

My heart skipped for a second. The prying feeling of Levi’s eyes fixating on me was still there. I turned back to him and found myself still incapable of speech.

“So are you going to let us in, or are we going to have to stand out here all night?” he snapped.

“W-what are you guys doing here?” I finally asked.

“A little birdy told us you were getting the group together at your house. We were free tonight and it didn’t sound half bad, soooo....” Hanji mused. She pushed past Levi and waltzed straight into the hallway. “Wow. Nice place you got here. Why’ve you been hiding it from us this whole time?”

“I-It’s been a while since I’ve hosted anything, and I wasn’t sure that...” I began, but Hanji wandered into the kitchen and deposited her plate on the table before I could finish. “Um... what are those?”

“Rice Krispie bars. I made a ton of them,” she said.

“Well, I definitely know _one_ of us is going to appreciate them,” I replied with a forced laugh.

Hanji smiled. “So where is everyone?”

“In the basement,” I said, nodding towards the open door. “I think they’re still playing-”

“Awesome. I’ll go say hi!”

“Wait, Hanji, I should probably tell them that you’re-”

She disappeared down the stairs before I could finish. Then it was just me and Levi.

Just me and Levi.

I glanced nervously over at him. He was standing leaned back against the counter, his hands in the pockets of his jeans and his silver-blue eyes sweeping lazily over the kitchen. I was surprised that I still remembered what color they were, given how drunk I was when I had first noticed them. I heard muffled shouting from the rest of the group in reaction to Hanji’s sudden appearance, but that was the only noise in the room. The silence was starting to make me twitch. I had to say something.  

“So... um... fancy seeing you here?” I prompted.

“I’d really say it’s more casual,” Levi replied, fixing his eyes on me again. I held back the automatic urge to laugh. It was clear that Levi wasn’t looking to get a reaction.

“Did Hanji...”

“Yeah, she did.”

“I thought so.” I let my eyes wander away from his for a while, hoping that it would ease the spastic butterflies in my stomach. Of course, that didn’t help at all. Dropping my gaze to his body only conjured up images of the shirtless dream god that I’d seen at Jean’s party. But at the very least, I found something to talk about.

“You’re wearing that again?” I asked.

“This?” Levi picked at the sleeve of his green flannel that I still inexplicably wanted to rub against my face. “Yeah. Why are you asking? You allergic to plaid or something?”

I kept my eyes focused on the pattern and tried not to think about the sculpted body underneath. “You’ve worn it literally every time we’ve seen each other outside of Trost.”

Levi glanced back up at me and raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised you remembered.”

“Well... It’s so obvious. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I never really thought my choice in shirts was something worth mentioning.”

“But you wear it so much. Why?” I pried.

“I never mentioned anything about Mikasa’s scarf, and she takes that fucking thing everywhere.”

“Yeah, but that’s...” I said, trailing off. I wasn’t exactly sure how to explain it to him. “The scarf is kind of special to her.”

“How?” Levi asked, his face still sticking to its blank, bored expression.

I took a deep breath and started the story. “I got it for her from a hospital gift shop back when we were ten. It was during one of times when we were visiting our mom. You know, before she...”

Levi blinked. “Before she died,” he finished for me.

“Yeah,” I breathed. “Anyway, it was February and it had started snowing while we were waiting for her to get out of another of her chemo sessions. Mikasa had forgotten to bundle up, since my dad had brought us straight from school and it had been warmer that morning. So I just took whatever was left of my lunch money for the week and ran to the gift shop. I only knew that her favorite color was red and she needed something warm, and boom, there was the scarf. I remember that she had brought it back to the hospital the next time we visited and gave it to our mom to keep her head warm, since the heating in her room was a little off, and, you know, she had no hair at that point...” I trailed off, trying to ignore the tightness that built up in my chest every time I told the story behind Mikasa’s scarf. “So, when our mom died, she took the scarf back, and she’s worn it every day since then.”

I looked up from the floor to find Levi gazing at me. His face stayed blank, but there was something flickering behind the blue-grey shield in his eyes. He blinked, and it was gone before I could figure out what it was.

“Oh,” he said flatly. “Well, that explains a lot.”

I pursed my lips together and did my best to swallow the raw feeling in my throat. “So,” I pressed. “What about the flannel?”

“There’s nothing about the flannel,” Levi responded. “It’s just comfortable and I’ve had it for a long time. I wear pretty much whenever it’s clean.”

“And that’s it?”

“Not everything has a deeper meaning to it, brat.”

“Oh. Okay,” I stuttered. I felt my face heat up as blood rushed into my cheeks and hoped with all my heart that Levi didn’t notice.

“Hey, it’s nothing to get embarrassed about. You were curious, and everyone has their own weird little quirks. That’s just the way it is.”

Fuck. He noticed. “I didn’t want to seem nosy or anything.”

“I work with Hanji. I stopped giving a shit about nosiness a long time ago.”

“Hey, Eren, when did the admins get here?” a new voice said.

The both of us fell silent and turned to face the open basement door. Mikasa was standing in the doorframe, leaning forward with her hands braced against either side. Her smokey black eyes settled on Levi. “Oh. Hanji said you’d be here.”

“This would certainly be awkward if she hadn’t,” Levi coolly replied.

My sister’s eyes flickered back and forth between the two of us. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said, her words clipped. “Were you two talking about anything important?”

“No, not really,” I cut in before one of them set the other off. “Just talking. I, um... We should probably be getting back to the basement. Everyone else is still down there.” I pushed past Mikasa and started down the stairs before either of them could say another word. I didn’t care what happened after I left. So long as they kept their fight out of the basement, I didn’t want to be around to see it. Bringing two of the most standoffish people I knew together and forcing them to sit in the same room for hours on end had to be the worst idea I had ever heard of. Hanji must have been high on something when she had thought of it.

“Nice scarf,” Levi said the second my back was turned.

I glanced over my shoulder. He was still leaned back against the counter, and Mikasa still in the doorway. One hand had wandered to the scarf around her throat, the other gripping the doorframe so tightly that its fingertips had turned white.

“Thanks,” she murmured coldly. “Eren got it for me.”

I shuddered and turned away, going on ahead of them into the basement. I heard Mikasa come downstairs after me a while later. She scrunched herself up next to me on the couch. I didn’t even need to ask what she and Levi had been talking about after I left. The deadened look on her face said enough.

Hanji had already gotten a jump on the games by the time we returned to the basement. She was in her second battle against Reiner and showing the buttons on her controller little to no mercy. Levi was the last one left upstairs. He came in just as Hanji’s Toon Link shoved Reiner’s Bowser off the platform for the third time and the LPN from hell dropped her controller and started dancing around and cheering for herself.

“Calm your tits, Hanji. It’s a game, not an open-heart surgery.”

I stifled a laugh and glanced over at Levi, who had perched himself on the arm of the couch opposite to ours. Hanji turned around and flicked up both her middle fingers at him. He stared impassively back at her and took another bite of the Rice Krispie bar he’d brought with him.

I would have laughed again if I weren’t interrupted by a tiny nudge on my shoulder. Mikasa glanced sideways at me, her face still stony with resentment. I gave her a look, conveying _What? It was funny._ as hard as I could. She only sighed and shifted around to stare at the TV. I did the same. Whatever he had said to her in the kitchen, it must have struck a nerve so deep that she was still smarting from the impact.

We sat together and kept our mouths shut for a while longer. Jean swaggered out of his beanbag chair next to Marco and snuck up behind Reiner. "Hey, Reiner, why don't you let me play the next round?"

"And let you lose your shit in front of everyone again?" Reiner scoffed as he returned to the menu screen. "How about no?"

"Come on. She can't be that good."

"Yeah, you're saying that now..." Reiner started, but he cut himself short. "You know what? Fine. But you can't say I didn't warn you." He shoved the controller into Jean's hands and went back to snuggling Bertolt on the floor next to the couch.

Jean sat down crosslegged in front of the TV and went about choosing another character, and Hanji finally stopped dancing once she noticed another round was starting. They picked out an arena and she leaned over to whisper “I hope you’re ready to get your ass kicked” directly into Jean’s ear.

“Yeah. Put your money where your mouth is, four-eyes,” Jean hissed in return.

“I’m sure that’s never a problem for you, rich boy.”

_“3, 2, 1... Fight!”_

The trash talking came to a halt as the battle began. Hanji started losing it on the controller as fast as she could, and Jean started doing the same. Mindless button mashing seemed to be surprisingly effective. At first I thought that Hanji had just been on a lucky streak, but Jean had her matched once he started using the same tactic. I watched them play, keeping my eyes locked on the screen and away from the seething Mikasa next to me. I couldn’t ignore her there, no matter how much I wanted to. She was squished up next to me on the couch, and I could practically feel her anger seeping through her skin. I didn’t dare look over at her. I knew she didn’t like to be consoled. She had proven to me more times than I could count that she was strong enough to get over things on her own.

“Why did you tell him about the scarf?” she suddenly asked.

My head whirled around. “What?” I said numbly, not sure I had heard her correctly over the music and frenzied shouting in front of us.

Mikasa kept her eyes fixated on the TV screen. “You told Levi about the scarf,” she murmured bitterly. “Why?”

“He asked me,” I replied, keeping my voice low. “I didn’t think there was anything wrong with-”

“But why? He didn’t need to know.”

“Mikasa, he just asked. It’s not that big a deal.”

“Maybe not to you.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do?”

“You could have lied about it. It’s not that hard.”

I sighed and turned back to the game. “Look, Mikasa, I don’t know what he said to you up there, but-”

“What has he ever told you, Eren?”

I tensed up in my seat at the question. “What are you asking me that for?”

Mikasa’s eyes hardened and she continued. “If he’s never told you anything about himself, then why should he have the right to know all this personal stuff about you? Or anyone else in the group, for that matter?”

“I...” I started, but my voice choked out on me before I could finish. She had a point. Levi was as close to a total stranger as someone I saw on a regular basis could get. He hadn’t given me a single shred of information about himself other than the basics. I didn’t even know his age. And yet, I felt as if I could tell him anything. I wanted to tell him anything. Anything and everything and I didn’t even have a reason why.

I took a deep breath and dropped my gaze to the floor. “I don’t think he does, actually.”

Mikasa huffed and pulled her legs tighter against her chest. “And we finally agree on something.”

“No. No, no no no no no no NO NO NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

_“Game Over. This game’s winner is... Fox!”_

The announcer’s voice echoed through the basement and my attention was dragged back to the TV. A victory symphony was playing in the background and mingling with Hanji’s wails of defeat.

“Ha!” Jean dropped his controller and pumped both his fists triumphantly in the air. “I did it! I did it! I won! How do you like me now?!”

Hanji slumped over on the floor and buried her face into the carpet, emitting a long, drawn-out whine. Jean leaned over her. “You thought you were the best, didn’t you?” he jeered. “Well guess what? You aren’t the only master button masher in this town!”

“But I bet you’re the only one in yours,” Hanji grumbled. Her hand shot out and caught Jean’s face, swatting his forehead with her fingertips.

Jean scooted back and picked up his controller again. “Whatever. I still won,” he said as he switched back to the menu screen. Jean dropped his controller again and sent Marco up to play a round against Armin. I glared at him as he lowered himself down into the beanbag next to my legs as if he owned it.

As soon as he was there, his arrogance magically disappeared. Whenever I looked away from the TV and down at him, I caught him glancing over his shoulder and taking a deep, exaggerated breath every few seconds. After what seemed like an eternity of nervous fidgeting, he turned around and knelt in the beanbag chair, grabbing onto the couch cushion for support. I spontaneously moved my feet away from his hands.

“Hey, Mikasa,” he murmured. I glanced sideways at her. She wasn’t responding. I had no idea what Jean was thinking. She was obviously not in the mood.

“Mikasa,” he repeated.“Mikasa, I want to talk to you.” He reached up and tapped Mikasa’s foot. “Mikasa, I-”

Jean was cut short by a swift kick to the chest. He lost his balance and fell backwards into his beanbag chair.

“What?” Mikasa deadpanned.

At least he’d gotten her attention.

Jean straightened himself up, took a deep breath and started over. “Look, I... I just wanted to apologize.”

Mikasa glanced down at him, her eyes cold. “For what?”

“For being such an asshole to you, and trying to get with you in the way that I did, like I was cool or something,” Jean murmured, looking shamefully down at the floor. “It... it was a really jerk move on my part, and I should have known that it wouldn’t work. You’re better than that. I know you don’t fall for that sort of thing, and it was stupid of me to try it.”

“Yeah, it was,” Mikasa agreed, her face maintaining a bored expression. It didn’t fool me. She was enjoying this.

“And I... Mikasa, I know I’m probably an idiot for even bothering to ask you this now, after all that I’ve done, but... I want you to give me another chance.”

My sister raised her eyebrows. “Another chance?”

“Y-yes,” Jean murmured. He pushed the beanbag aside and stood up. “Mikasa... will you go out with me?”

The entire room went silent. Everyone had turned around to see what was going on at our end of the couch. The game had been paused, and I’m pretty sure that even Yoshi and Waluigi had turned to watch. Mikasa stared blankly up at Jean for a moment, and then the corners of her mouth twitched into a smirk. She sighed and shook her head.

“I give up,” she said. “Fine. I’ll go out with you, Jean.”

 

* * *

 

I had never wanted to see Jean dead more than I did at that moment. Right then, I wanted nothing more than to skewer him like a star on the top of a Christmas tree. But I couldn’t do that. Not to Mikasa’s new boyfriend.

I shivered at thought of the word. Boyfriend. It had never sounded so tacky to me until then.

The second Mikasa consented to Jean’s proposal, I got up and started searching for a new place to sit. Horseface took mine in a heartbeat. I tried to find a new spot, but there was no more space on the couch and there was nowhere left to sit but the floor. A long, growling sigh rushed out of my lungs as I sank down and leaned back against the side.

“Oi. You alright there, brat?” a voice above me said.

I twisted around to look up and my eyes met with Levi’s. A tiny shock ran through my nerves. I’d forgotten he was sitting there.

“Yeah,” I answered numbly. “I’ll get over it.”

Levi raised an eyebrow at me. “Really? That seems to be a hobby of yours.”

“What?”

“Getting over things,” he scoffed, leaning back into the couch. “I’ve heard it from you so many times. _I’ll get over it_. You sound like you’re a fucking wounded soldier or something.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the tv. The game had unpaused and the battle had started again. “If Mikasa is fine with this, then I’ll stay out of it. It’s not that complicated.”

“I wasn’t only referring to this, brat.”

“Then what _were_ you referring to?”

Levi didn’t answer. He knew that I hadn’t even needed to ask. I failed to push away the memory of the call button and clinging to his hand for dear life as I slumped against the side of the couch and stared numbly at the onscreen battle.

Things went as quiet as the gaming noise would allow. Marco and Armin’s fight ended, Armin won and another round started. Levi spoke up after a while. “I wasn’t betting on it happening either, you know.”

“Mikasa and Jean?” I asked.

“Yeah. I was kind of hoping she’d say no to him.” He let out a soft, humorless laugh. “As if Seabiscuit needs any more reasons to have a superiority complex.”

A smile crawled onto my face at the mention of Jean’s new nickname. “I’m pretty sure Mikasa will cut him down before long. Just because she said yes doesn’t mean she’ll be swooning over him every second.”

“It doesn’t mean he won’t expect her to either.” Levi repositioned and leaned in close to me. “I’d give them a month,” he whispered. “Six weeks, tops. There’s no way they’re going to last.”

I smirked, ignoring the little thrill that ran down my spine at the feeling of Levi’s breath brushing against my ear. “If you need to know anything about Mikasa, it’s that she doesn’t put up with any kind of bullshit. Her last relationship lasted three weeks, and believe me, the guy was nowhere near as bad as Jean. If she doesn’t drop him within two, then he deserves a fucking medal.”

“As if you’d even give him one in the first place,” Levi murmured before drawing away from my ear. I glanced up at him, suddenly wishing he hadn’t left.

_Wait, what am I thinking?_

He was still there. He was sitting right next to me. He hadn’t gone anywhere, he just didn’t have his face directly next to mine anymore. Why would I even want him to be that close? I turned back to the TV, wondering what the hell was wrong with me.

The gaming continued, and the time gradually ran itself into the ground. Before we knew it, eleven PM was fast approaching. Levi and Hanji volunteered to stick around to help us clean up, or more accurately, Hanji volunteered and Levi wasn’t in the mood to argue about it. Marco called his mom to pick him and Jean up, and Reiner told Annie to let him know when she wanted to leave. I wasn’t so sure that she was listening to him, since she was in the middle of face-to-face texting with Armin at the moment, but she still tugged on his sleeve a while later to let him know she wanted out. Armin followed them upstairs and left Mikasa and I to clean up the mess that everyone had left. He didn’t come back to the basement for an unusually long while. Marco’s ride from Trost showed up before my friend did, and I had to seethe all by myself when Mikasa let Jean gave her a not-on-the-cheek kiss goodbye. I wondered what was keeping my best friend upstairs for so long.

When Armin finally reappeared, he was carrying a huge black case slung over his shoulder. I looked up from the tangled console wires I was unhooking with a touch of surprise. “What is that?” I asked.

“It’s my guitar,” Armin replied innocently, shrugging the shoulder he had weighed down with the case strap.

“You have a guitar?” Hanji piped up from her position on the couch. She’d been the one to offer her help cleaning up, but all she seemed to be doing was rifling through my game collection.

“Um... yeah.” Armin leaned the case up against the coffee table and went over to help me with the wires. “I don’t know why I brought it in the first place. You know, since we would be playing games the whole time. I was hoping to get some practice later tonight, but the games went pretty late, and-”

“Hold on, Coconut,” Levi said. I snickered under my breath. Even though he’d stuck me with “brat,” Levi was a certifiable master of nicknames. “You never told me you were a musician.”

Armin blushed and started stuttering. “Well, I-I’m not... I’ve only been learning for a little more than a year... I’m really not that good...”

“But you can play it, right?” he cut in.

“Well, I’m still improving, but I guess I can...”

“Mind showing us?” Hanji asked brightly. Levi glared at her, and she added, “I mean, once we’re done with cleaning up and everything, of course.”

“Um... sure?” Armin replied, the words sounding more like a question than an answer.

“Alright then. After we’re done cleaning up in here, you’re going to play for us.” Levi’s words sounded strangely commanding, but no one had any time to point it our before he went back to sweeping crumbs off of the coffee table.

“Well, would you look at that,” Hanji said as she slid the last of the games back onto their shelf. “The little Coconut’s finally coming out of his shell.”

The basement was back in order in a matter of minutes. I wasn’t sure if things went faster because of teamwork, or because Levi was just that eager to see exactly how much talent Armin had been hiding from us this whole time. Once there was no longer any evidence that a party had ever taken place, Levi instructed Armin to set himself up on the couch.

“Are you sure you guys want to stay around to watch?” he asked, sounding nervous.

“Of course we do,” Hanji reassured him.

“But wouldn’t that mean you guys would be staying out a little late?”

Levi rolled his eyes. “Why, are you worried we’ll break our curfew or something? How old do you think we are?”

I sighed to myself. Wasn’t that the question of the day.

“So,” Mikasa cut in, dropping down onto the couch next to Armin. “Are you going to play for us, or did you drag that massive thing all the way here just for fun?”

“I really don’t see how dragging anything that big could possibly be fun,” I said, eyeing the guitar as I moved to sit down on the floor. It was a wonder he’d even been able to carry it down the stairs. The case was almost the size of his entire body.

Armin tugged the case into his lap. “Believe me, it wasn’t. I don’t even know why I wanted to bring it in the first place. I wasn’t even going to-”

“Would you just quit the stalling and play?”

“Okay, okay. Sorry.” Armin pulled back the zipper and slid his guitar out. It seemed relatively new, other than the faded finish on the wood. “I’m going to have to tune it first though, so...”

“That’s alright, we can wait,” Hanji chirped.

And we waited. For the next five minutes.

“You’re still stalling, aren’t you Armin?”

Armin’s face flushed and his fingers tightened on the keys. “I-I’m sorry, it’s just- I’ve never performed in front of anyone, and I...”

“Armin.”

My friend’s mouth snapped shut at the sound of Levi’s voice. His wide blue eyes shifted warily over to my ex-nurse. “We’re not here to judge you,” he said. “You know that, right?”

Armin didn’t answer. He just sighed and sank his teeth into his lip before poising his fingers over the frets and strumming the strings a few times. A second later, he looked up at the rest of us. “Any requests?”

I raised my eyebrows. “You were doubting your ability to play guitar literally twenty seconds ago, and now you’re taking requests?”

“I don’t have any ideas,” Armin said with a shrug. “I can usually play simple four-chord stuff.”

“Do you know _Skinny Love_? You know, that Bon Iver song,” Mikasa chipped in.

Armin looked back down at his guitar strings. “Skinny Love was actually one of the first real songs that I learned, but pretty much everyone knows how to play that one. It’s nothing special.”

“So what? I love that song. Go ahead.” Mikasa tapped the side. “Play it.”

Armin didn’t bother protesting. He took a deep breath, repositioned his fingertips and started to play. The basement filled with soft, plaintive notes thrumming in a steady rhythm. As soon as the song reached its second measure, Armin seemed to have gone into another plane of existence. His eyes were downcast at his guitar, the anxiety and nerves that I’d seen less than a minute earlier suddenly nonexistent. I laid my head back against the couch cushions and let the music seep into my soul.

He said he wasn’t sure if he could play well. Ha. Bullshit.

The one thing I didn’t expect was for him to start singing.

“Come on, skinny love, just last the year...”

Suddenly I was sitting bolt upright again. _Where the hell did that come from?_

“Pour a little salt, we were never here...”

Armin’s mouth was moving along with the words, and as hard as it was to believe, the voice did sound kind of like his. It was quiet and a little breathy, even that didn’t detract from the melody. It only gave it a soft, expressive feel that couldn’t have been better fitted to the song he was playing.

“Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer...Tell my love to wreck it all, cut out all the ropes and let me fall...”

“Holy shit,” Levi murmured, too quietly for anyone sitting on the couch to hear.

Armin’s eyebrows knitted as he changed positions on the fret. “And I told you to be patient, and I told you to be fine...”

The four of us sat like dolls and watched him, letting the music hold us in a trance until it stopped. Armin’s hand stilled over the strings and he turned back into the blushing, embarrassed mouse boy we all knew so well. “I can’t remember any of the lyrics after that.”

Hanji was gawking at Armin, her eyes looking unnaturally large behind her glasses. “Holy Mother Theresa.”

“Armin, that was...” Mikasa began, but she was never able to finish.

“Since when were you able to do that?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t been playing for very long-”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” I said. “You never told us you could sing.”

“You- you liked it?” Armin gushed, his cheeks bright pink and his eyes like cue balls.

“Um, YES,” Hanji answered for me. “Your voice could probably punch half the pop stars on the planet in the face.”

“Whoa. Really?”

“Jesus fucking christ...” Levi muttered, running a hand over his hair. “Yes, Armin, you have talent. How many goddamn times are you going to have to hear us say it before you stop asking?”

“Wow... thanks,” Armin murmured, looking shyly away. He ran his fingers delicately over the bridge. “Should I play another one, or-”

“Yes, yes, please god yes!” Hanji blurted out.

Armin blinked, his face blank with disbelief. “O-okay...” He repositioned his fingers over the strings and the opening notes of _A-Team_ drifted out into the air.

“White lips, pale face, breathing in the snowflakes...”

I leaned back against the couch cushions again, resting my head against Mikasa’s feet. I’d never liked pop music, and I hadn’t even bothered listening to the song when it had first gotten famous, but something about the raw, unedited way Armin played it made it sound different. As the song progressed, I realized that it was actually pretty good. The melody was soft and haunting, and the lyrics sounded like they could actually hold some kind of meaning. I’d never noticed it before. I probably just hadn’t given the song a chance because its popularity had doomed it from the start.

“They say she’s in the class A-team, stuck in her daydream...”

My eyes drifted closed while I listened to the soft notes floating around in the room. Then, all of a sudden, they stopped again.

I sat up again. “Was that it?”

Armin looked down at me and shrugged. “I skipped over the second verse. I can never remember the lyrics.”

“Well, is there anything that you know all the words to?” Mikasa pressed.

Armin went silent for a second, as if he needed time to think. “Well, there are a lot, but I haven’t had all that much practice playing them myself.”

“Why does it matter?” I asked, giving him a small smile. “Just go for it. One song, all the way through.”

“Okay,” Armin said, returning the smile. It faded a second later. “I don’t think anyone else is going to know this one though.”

“We don’t care, Coconut. Just play it.”

Armin sighed and focused back on his guitar. He started to sing the second his fingers hit the strings.

“Stay for tonight, if you want to, I can show you, what my dreams are made of...”

Armin was wrong. I had heard this before. It was one of the songs he’d squealed at when he saw it sitting in my iTunes library. Of course, there were other Sleeping with Sirens songs that I liked better than _If I’m James Dean Then You’re Audrey Hepburn_. I had never been a fan lovesongs (especially not lately). But for some reason, the way Armin played it wouldn’t allow me to hate it. I didn’t even mind when he missed a note or his fingers slipped on the chords. The stupid sentiment behind the song didn’t seem to matter anymore.

My thoughts started drifting out of my control while I sat and listened to the soft, lilting melody from Armin’s guitar. Somehow the lyrics reminded me of something that I’d wanted to ask a million times before, but never had. It seemed like an odd question every time I thought of it, but only because my brain always seemed to take it out of context. It was just a simple question. One that he wouldn’t mind answering.

“How the hell did you ever pick me? Honestly, ‘cause I could sing you a song, but I don’t think words could express...”

I leaned over and tapped Levi on the shoulder. His razor-sharp eyes glanced sideways at me. “Hm?” he hummed in acknowledgement.

“Hey, Levi, how old are you?” I asked quietly.

Levi blinked and tilted his head to the side. “Why are you asking me something like that?”

“I forgot what you said in your introduction,” I said quickly. At least it wasn’t a _total_ lie.

“Why does it matter?” Levi replied flatly. He didn’t seem too offput by the question. Then again, he never really seemed any way about anything.

“It doesn’t, I guess,” I admitted. “I was just curious.”

“Weird thing to be curious about,” he said, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He turned around to lean back against the couch. “I’m twenty, if you absolutely have to know,” he added a second later.

“Oh,” I murmured dumbly. I sat back against the couch and stared at the powered-down TV screen. Twenty. That wasn’t that much older than me. I knew Levi had always looked pretty young, but I never thought that he was _that_ young. I wondered how he had gotten his LPN certification so early on.

I sighed and tilted my head back over the cushions. Armin looked down at me from behind his bangs and flashed a smile at me as the lyrics kept spilling from his mouth.

“Please stay as long as you need, can’t promise things won’t be broken, but I swear that I will never leave...”

I stuck my tongue out at Armin in response and went on to staring up at the ceiling. The torrent of thoughts that had been swirling around in my head before asking Levi for his age hadn’t calmed down in the slightest. I thought that maybe once I had my answer everything would stop. I couldn’t have possibly been more wrong.

I glanced over at Levi. What was it about him that made me lose control of my thoughts like this? He was just some nurse who had taken care of me some long, irrevocable amount of time ago. I’d met more of those in the past few years than anyone should ever see in their entire lifetime. But there was something else. Something that I wasn’t seeing yet.

I had wondered before why he had come back into my life after we had separated for what I thought would be forever after my surgery. Now the question came rushing back to me, stronger than ever. There had to be a reason for this. Maybe there was something that our meeting that summer had left unfinished.

The second the words crossed my mind, my heart started fluttering. It didn’t stop until the end of the song.

I glanced up at the couch when the strumming slowed down and stopped again. Hanji looked close to tears.

“That... was beautiful,” she gushed, her fingertips pressed to her lips.

“Thanks,” Armin said shyly, blushing all over again.

“Play another one.”

“A-are you sure?”

Levi groaned under his breath and tilted his head back to glare up at her. “Hanji, we’re going to be here all night at this rate.”

“Come on, don’t be such a killjoy. One more, and then we’ll leave.”

“When I was asking him to play before, I only meant to stick around for a song or two. My shift starts at eight tomorrow.”

“And I’ll pay for your coffee tomorrow. I promise.” Sure that she’d shut Levi up, Hanji turned to Armin. “Please. Just one more,” she begged.

“Um...” Armin’s face reddened until he looked like he’d just gotten the worst sunburn of his life. Hanji had practically thrown herself into his lap begging for another performance. Mikasa was trying not to laugh at them. “Sure,” he eventually agreed. “I guess I could do one more.”

Levi rolled his eyes and slumped back towards the floor. I watched him sink and then looked up at Armin. Another soft melody echoed from the strings and fell into a steady rhythm. Then he started to sing again.

“Lights out, I still hear the rain, these images that fill my head, now keep my fingers from making mistakes...”

Levi shifted around on the carpet next to me. He stretched his legs out and lowered himself onto his side, his head coming to rest on the floor next to me. He let out a heavy sigh and closed his eyes. I stared down at him, my heart once again hammering in my chest. I hoped that he wasn’t planning on spending the night in my basement.

Suddenly his eyes cracked open and flicked toward me. “What? I’m just getting comfortable.”

I tore my eyes away and tried to ignore the burning in my cheeks. It wasn’t the first time he’d caught me staring at him. And yet I still got just as embarrassed.

“Now there’s an aching in my back, a stabbing pain that says I lack, the common sense and confidence, to bring an end to promises...”

Levi had done nothing but confuse me since our paths had crossed again. I hadn’t been able to feel anything but conflicted about him. Ever since I had met him again at that first support group meeting, I had wanted to reconnect with him. I had pushed the fact out of my consciousness more times than I would count, but that was the truth. And every time I tried to go through with it, everything seemed to fall apart. I was within inches of becoming a fully-fledged blushing schoolgirl and referring to him as “senpai.” I already had the blushing down to a science. But senpai had noticed me a long time ago, and there wasn’t any use flipping out about it now.

“Don’t make this easy, I want you to mean it, Jasey, say you’ll mean it...”

I never felt as awkward or as comfortable as I did with him. And something deep in my soul was telling me that things had changed for me. Ever since that day that I had grabbed his hand before the surgery, something was different. I’d changed the entire course of my life in that single moment, that one stupid, desperate act that I regretted with every fiber of my being. No matter how many times I tried to convince myself, I could only run from the truth for so long.

I had remembered Levi after I left Trost that summer. And I had been wondering for a long time whether he had done the same for me.

The lyrics in Armin’s song continued outside of my thoughts.

“I’ve never told a lie, and that makes me a liar...”

The words worked their way past the hellstorm in my head and struck a chord somewhere in me that I hadn’t even known existed. Without thinking, I risked another glance at Levi lying on the floor next to me. He was sprawled out on the carpet, his eyes drifted shut and his head was only inches from my hand. I wanted so badly to reach out and run my fingers through his hair.

_No. What am I thinking?_

“I’ve never made a bet, but we gamble with desire...”

Ever since I had found him again, I’d wanted things to go back to the way they were when he’d been my nurse at Trost that summer. But now I knew they never could be. Things were different now, and in a way that I never could have expected.

_No. Please, god, no. Anything but that._

“I’ve never lit a match with intent to start a fire...”

Suddenly I understood. All the times I’d started blushing for no apparent reason, the reason why my heart skipped a beat every time he said my name, even when I’d narrowly avoided throwing up all over him at a party because of a meaningless idea that I’d had when I was too drunk to walk in a straight line. All of it was starting to make sense now. I’d given up. I couldn’t hide it from myself anymore.

“But recently the flames are getting out of control.”

I had a crush on Levi Ackerman.

And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go.  
> There it is.  
> Right there.  
> I hope you've all enjoyed the latest installment of Eren Screws Himself Over. Feel free to leave kudos, leave a review, follow the story, or whatever else you want to do. And the tumblr posts too. Can't be forgetting about those.  
> It's past midnight, and I am on the verge of passing out. I should probably get some sleep now.  
> I'm 11 minutes late, but I'm still going to say it. Happy birthday, titan boy.  
> See you next chapter.


	11. The Meeting To End All Meetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY 4/13 FOR ALL YOU HOMESTUCK TRASH BABIES WHO HAPPEN TO BE READING THIS.  
> I told all 25 people following my tumblr blog that there would be an upd8. Well, here is your upd8.  
> Since I keep all my fandoms tossed together in my head like an exceptionally messy salad, I thought today seemed like a good day to post my next chapter. Hussie did it to his work of fiction, so I figured one of his fangirls might as well do the same. So for anyone who happens to come across this chapter and understands exactly how special this day is... good for you, bro.  
> This story has reached almost 700 hits on ao3 and I've stopped counting how many it's recieved on fanfiction.net, since the story layout is a little more dated. But judging by the reviews I've gotten so far, I'd say I'm doing okay.  
> Okay?  
> Eh. I guess we'll figure that one out in the later chapters.  
> I honestly don't know why I keep doing this, but I'm gonna keep plugging my tumblr until I see some results. It's asking-appelia. Go follow it. It's pretty cool. Then again, I should probably fix my blog to make it look less fucking amateur if I want to get more followers. Also I am tracking the tags "fic: the monsters inside us" and "fic: tmiu" for this story. So if you want to post anything about it ever, tag it with those so I can find it and maybe make a page. That would be nice. Thanks.  
> Alright, done with this shit.  
> Story time.

 

 

I had known for a long time that things were coming to an end. But that didn’t make the experience any less difficult when it happened.

It was for that very reason that I was almost afraid to go to the last official meeting of the Youth Cancer Support Group.

“Hey, Eren.”

I glanced up at the front passenger seat to see Mikasa twisted around to face me. There was a twinge of concern in her calm, charcoal-black eyes. “Yeah?” I responded.

“Are you going to miss this after it’s over?”

I sighed and rolled my eyes at her. “Mikasa, how could you think that I would miss having to go back to Trost twice a week?”

“I’m not talking about Trost,” she said. “I mean the support group. You guys are going to have to find venues and schedule meetings by yourselves until next summer. I’ve heard it can get pretty difficult.”

“What’s with the word choice?” I asked.

“What word choice?”

“You’re saying _you guys_. As if you’re not going to be a member anymore. I thought you were a part of the group too.”

“I am,” she replied. “And I will be. Just not all the time.”

“Not all the time?” I repeated, confused.

“Once the school year starts up again, I’m going to be busy,” she explained. “I probably won’t be able to make it to all of the meetings. You’re going to have to keep track of this yourself from now on.”

I sighed again and leaned back against the back seat of Clara’s car. “I know.”

No matter how much I hated it, everything she said was true. I had seen the dates on the flyer when she had brought it home that afternoon in the earlier days of summer. The support group only had permission to use the the conference room until the end of the August. After that, we’d be on our own. I didn’t like the idea one bit. I was sure that without the scheduled meetings and with Mikasa in school instead of being consistently available to drag me out of the house when I needed to be dragged, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with everything.

I had lost contact with all of my friends once before, and I had no desire to relive that horrible experience over again. Much to my surprise, I had gotten kind of attached over the summer. I wasn’t ready to let the group go just yet. But there was only one more week before the school year started again, and after today the official meetings would stop. That was why I had decided to make sure I had everything tied nicely together before the meeting ended today. Just in case I couldn’t manage all of the support group stuff when there was no longer an upper hand enforcing it, I wanted this last meeting to have a bit of finality to it.

Of course, I hoped that it wouldn’t end up that way. And maybe I would be able to do this on my own. Who knew? No matter what the outcome actually turned out to be, I wanted everyone in the group (with a few exceptions) to know that I wanted to stay with them. I probably wouldn’t be able to keep things together, and maybe if they knew how I felt they would be willing to help me stay connected to the group. It would sure as hell be easier than trying to trust myself with that kind of commitment. I still needed help. I wanted be sure that my feathers had grown in before I got pushed out of the nest. Otherwise I would just end up hitting the ground.

“You said to drop you off by the cancer center entrance, right?” Clara asked.

“Yeah. It’s the one with all the windows and the automatic doors out front.”

I had to thank Mikasa sometime for getting all her Shinganshina senior friends from the library to drive us to the meetings instead of our dad.

Clara’s car pulled up in front of the wide glass-paneled doors. “This one, right?”

“Yep,” Mikasa replied. She opened the door and slipped the strap of her messenger bag over her shoulder. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you Sunday, right?”

“Of course. And I’ll be back for the Haunted Library fundraiser in October. Remember, Sina’s only forty-five minutes away.”

I climbed out of the backseat and landed next to Mikasa on the asphalt. “Thanks, Clara,” I said automatically. It was a little weird, getting favors from people I barely knew.

“See you guys later,” she said, smiling at us through the open window.

“Good luck at Sina!” Mikasa called after her as she pulled away from the curb and drove off. We stood there for a second before she turned to me. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Actually, there were at least a thousand reasons why I wasn’t. But I didn’t want her to know that.

Mikasa led the way through the automatic doors and down the hallway that we had walked through so many times before. It all felt so numb and routine by now. I had almost forgotten how it felt not having to come here twice a week. 4A’s fake oak door was waiting for us, propped welcomingly open as it always was. We stepped through, and the rest of the group noticed our presence immediately. Then it all turned into a flurry of greetings, hugs, laughter and meaningless conversations.

God, I was going to miss this.

Armin grabbed a hold of me the second I stepped through the door and led me over to the circle of chairs that I had gotten so used to seeing. “Come on. We’re setting up the schedule for September.”

I didn’t fight him. Not even when he sat me down directly next to Annie. She glanced over her shoulder and peered coldly at me past a side swept blonde fringe that hid almost half of her face. “Hey,” I said casually. The only response she gave me was exhaling heavily and turning back to the printout calendar at the center of the circle. I sighed to myself. _Yep, she still hates me._

Reiner was checking off spaces in the calendar with an orange pen from the bundle of colors clutched in his other hand. “If we want to stick to the same Tuesday-Thursday schedule, then I’ll only be able to make these days for sure. It all depends on my hours, really.”

“I thought your manager knew about the support group,” Bertolt pointed out.

“He does. He just doesn’t care.”

“Hey, guys, did you notice who’s here?” Armin chimed in, sticking himself into the chair next to Reiner and pointing at me.

The massive blonde looked up from the calendar and a blinding smile broke out on his face. “Eren! Hey there!” he boomed with enthusiasm that could only be outdone by Hanji. He handed off the calendar and pens to his boyfriend before standing up and pulling me into one of his bone-crushing bear hugs that I didn’t hate nearly as much as I used to. I tried not to look like I’d been suffocating when he let me go. “How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been okay,” I said, decidedly leaving out all the other complications that had been going on in my life. Other than those, I really was okay. At least as okay as I could get with mutated cells hanging out in my bone marrow.

“Great,” Reiner replied warmly. “So. Last meeting today.”

I nodded, just a little bit sadly. “Yeah.”

“You gonna miss this place?”

“I see enough of the place as it is,” I replied, crossing over to sit with Armin instead of Miss Silently Plotting Your Gruesome Death. “It’s the group that I’m more worried about missing.”

“Well, that’s why we’ve got this,” Bertolt said, waving the calendar at me. He passed the pens back to Reiner, who then held them out to me.

“Here. Pick a color, then write your name in the corner and mark off whichever days you’ll be able to make it. We’re trying to stick to the old three-to-four, Tuesday-Thursday schedule, but if that ends up falling through, we can work around it.”

“Oh. Okay.” I tentatively took a bright green pen from the collection and leaned over the calendar. “Um... I’d be free pretty much anytime, actually.”

Bertolt looked up and raised his eyebrows. “Anytime?”

I shrugged, my face twitching into an embarrassed smile. “Yeah. I... don’t really have much going on in my life. Other than this, I mean.”

“Oh,” Reiner said after an uncomfortable three seconds of silence. “Okay. Okay, great. I guess we can just skip you over then.”

“Alright,” I agreed. “You’re going to want to talk to Mikasa, though. She always has a ton of stuff going on once the school year starts.”

Reiner’s face brightened up. “Good idea. Hey, Annie, can you go get Mikasa?”

The silent blonde nodded, stood up out of her chair and left the circle. I did the same and made my way over to the snack table. Normally I would have followed Annie just so I would have my sister to stick with again. But the support group meetings didn’t count as “normally” situations anymore. I could handle myself here. Besides, she was probably off in some corner making out with Jean.

Yeah. They were still together.

It had been three weeks since Jean had practically proposed to her in my basement. And, surprisingly, their relationship hadn’t fallen to pieces yet. It really seemed like it would at first. Seabiscuit had been texting Mikasa every night and had called her three times by the time their first week together was up. It pissed her off to no end. She called him out for it at one of the Thursday meetings, and he had somehow forced himself to back off after that. But even with Jean’s clinginess on a leash, I still didn’t think they would hold together much longer.

I remembered the conversation I’d had with Levi at that same meeting when they had stepped out of the conference room to argue. I had bet my ass that Jean would be a single man before the end of August. But after the constant texting stopped, things actually started to smooth over. Jean took her out on a few dates. Mikasa went over to his house a few times. And she didn’t hate every second she spent with him anymore. With every passing breakup-free day it seemed like I was losing. So I guess my ass now belonged to Levi.

Not that I would’ve minded giving it to him all that much.

I looked warily around the room as I picked a few Munchkins out of the box Hanji had brought. Now that I was thinking about him (again), wasn’t he supposed to be here? I did a quick once-over of the room. It seemed like everyone was here but him. The second admin of the group was nowhere in sight.

I felt a sudden twist deep inside me. The thought crossed my mind before I could stop myself. _Is he skipping out on the last meeting?_

Out of all the people that I wanted to keep with me after the official meetings came to an end, Levi was probably the one that I hoped the most would decide to stay. He’d been the only one who I had known beforehand when I had first joined the support group. And over the weeks, we’d gotten pretty close. Or at least I had gotten close to him. I never really took Levi for the kind of person who got expressly “close” to people. Besides, I had already lost contact with him once. Now that he’d come back to me, I didn’t want to let him go again so easily.

And then there was that little epiphany that I’d had in my basement three weeks earlier.

I bit viciously into one of my chosen Munchkins as the memory ran through my head. It had taken me so long to figure out what kind of feelings Levi had managed to stir up in me. And once I did, I wished I never had. I hadn’t had a crush on anyone since eighth grade. And I had never had one as strong as this. There was a reason for that. Several, actually. One of them being that this was a crush on Levi.

_On Levi._

I didn’t think that even Mikasa could have known that I was into guys. Fuck. _I_ hadn’t even known I was into guys. Not until one started giving me butterflies every time I so much as thought of him.

A strange noise dragged me out of my head and back into reality. It sounded kind of like someone had crossbred a shark and a pug with a sinus infection, starved the offspring for three days and then dropped it into the middle of a bakery. Sasha was snatching up Munchkins from the boxes at the speed of light and cramming them into her mouth with the skill of a professional hamster. She slowed down for a second, then her head spun around and her eyes were on me. She drew in a tiny gasp and her overstuffed mouth turned up into a smile.

“Uhremm!” she cried out around a mouthful of half-chewed Munchkin. “Hmy! Efsh grd ff smg yrh!”

“Um... hi,” I said, clueless as to what the hell she was trying to say.

Sasha forced her mouth shut and miraculously swallowed everything in it at once. “Omf... I can’t believe it’s the last meeting of the year,” she said once the dough blockage was gone. “It’s all gone by so fast.”

“Yeah. It really has.” Sasha’s words rang in my ears. I had never realized how right she was until then. All of my summers for the past few years had all dragged by at an unbearably slow pace, spending day after day either trapped in the house or the hospital. But things had changed since then. And even though I had tried my hardest not to notice, the time had started to slip by me.

“So what are you going to be doing for the rest of the year?” Sasha continued innocently, plucking more Munchkins from the box. “You’re not in school, so what do you do with all that time?”

“Um... not much, really,” I replied. “I get homeschooled, so I have work from that, and I go out to do stuff with Mikasa sometimes... and I guess that’s it.”

“Hm. You’ve got a lot of free time, don’t you?”

A tiny dose of disappointment tipped itself back and drained into me. “Yeah, I do.”

Sasha laughed. “What I wouldn’t give to know what that was like again.” She popped a fresh Munchkin into her mouth. “Trust me, buddy. You are _beyond_ lucky that you aren’t in a regular high school anymore. It’s basically a waste of 7 hours a day, and then you have to do all the work on your own time. It’s ridiculous.”

“I know. Mikasa tells me all the time.”

“I don’t know why they organize the way they do. It’s completely- AH!” Sasha squealed as a pair of hands snuck up behind her and pinched her sides. She spun around and made a pouty face at Connie, who had appeared out of nowhere and was laughing uncontrollably.

“Gotcha!” he shouted. Sasha swatted him upside the head.

“What was that for?”

“Nothing. Just a reminder that you need to cut back on the munchkins. You’ve been looking a little on the chunky side of skeletal lately.”

Sasha rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her rib-lined chest.

“Come on, Eren. You agree with me, don’t you?” he said sarcastically, looking up at me. “Look at this. She’s not a toothpick anymore. She’s almost a twig! Maybe even a penc-” The rest of Connie’s comment was cut short when Sasha grabbed his head, trapped it under her arm and rubbed her fist into the top of his fluff-coated head.

“Would you can it with the fat jokes? They don’t even work on me!”

“Would you rather they be skinny jokes?” Connie gasped. Sasha mashed his face into her side and shut him up.

“Hey... um...” I murmured, trying to cut into their miniature bro-fight. Sasha looked up and raised her eyebrows, not allowing Connie to do the same. “Have either of you seen Levi around?”

It wasn’t like I actually wanted to talk to him. In fact, I wanted to do anything but that, since I seemed incapable of talking to him without making myself look stupid, feel stupid or possibly both. I just wanted to know that he was there, and that I would get one last chance to see him. I had no idea how I would do on my own, and I didn’t want to never see him again without at least saying goodbye first.

Even though the more that I overthought it, the more it sounded like that would be for the best.

“No,” Sasha said, still holding Connie hostage. “I don’t think anyone has, actually.”

“Oh. Okay.” I started off towards the circle.

“Why were you asking?” Connie asked, struggling out from under Sasha’s arm and straightening up. “Are you worried about him or something?”

“No,” I said without looking back.

Halfway across the room I changed my mind and decided to go over to another corner of the room. Jean and Mikasa had joined the little gaggle around the calendar and were picking out days when they would be able to make the meetings of the off season. Jean had Mikasa sitting in his lap, his arms around her waist. I thought very seriously about running over and ripping his chair out from under him as I leaned back against the wall and slowly depleted my handful of Munchkins. I decided against it, since Mikasa was sitting in his lap and would probably throttle me if she hit the floor and it was my fault.

A minute later, I wasn’t alone anymore.

“Hey, Eren,” Marco said brightly as he approached the wall and stood next to me.

“Hey,” I replied flatly around the ball of dough in my mouth.

Marco leaned back against the wall and looked over at the circle where his best friend and my best sister were cuddling like the happy fucking couple that I wished they weren’t. “They’re kind of cute together, aren’t they?” he said.

I glanced sideways at him, my eyes falling instinctively into a glare. “You actually think that?”

“Of course I do. Just look at them.” He nodded over at them, a daydreaming smile on his face. Mikasa giggled as Jean stuck a playful little kiss on her nose. “They’re adorable.”

“I guess,” I deadpanned. I stared blankly at the two of them, the sight so sickening that I couldn’t look away. Ugh. Not even Reiner and Bertolt’s shameless PDA against a car had bothered me as much as this.

Marco glanced over at me, his smile starting to fade. “Something wrong?”

I shook my head. “No. Just... thinking.”

“Is it because it’s the last meeting?”

“Yeah.” The lie came out all too easily.

“We’re going to have more after this, you know. They just won’t be at the hospital anymore.”

“Is Levi going to be-”

I stopped myself before the rest of the question could slip out. _Stop it, Eren. What the hell are you saying?_

“Hm. I don’t know,” Marco said. He hadn’t even needed to hear the rest to know what I had just barely avoided asking. “He didn’t come to any of the meetings in the off season when he was an admin last year. But things seem a little different this year, for some reason.”

I blinked and was finally able to rip my eyes away from Jean canoodling with my sister. “Different?”

“Yeah. In a lot of ways, really. He never used to get into the group activities before. He didn’t talk to anyone at the meetings, didn’t come to any of the unofficial meetings, never went to any of the groupwide stuff we did outside of Trost... He was pretty much the ghost of the group. Just haunting the meetings and never really doing much.”

“So the Bad Movie Nights, and that time in my basement...”

“This is the first year he’s done any of that. It’s so weird. Last year it was like he wanted nothing to do with us, and now...” He flicked his hand around in a circle like he was a magician making tissue paper disappear. “Poof. He’s like another person.”

“Wow. Weird.” Hope bubbled up in the back of my mind and I did my best to pop it before it rose to the surface. “Why do you think that is?”

“No idea,” Marco said with a shrug. “It’s nice, though. He seems a lot happier like this.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “You can tell?”

Marco laughed to himself. “Not really. But I like to think so.”

I looked past the circle and at the door on the other side of the room. Hanji would probably be calling us into the circle soon. It didn’t seem like anyone was outside. There was no way Levi was going to show up at this rate. Of all the times he could have chosen to skip out on a meeting, it had to be the last one of the summer.

Hanji’s voice rang out above the murmur of the support group. “Alright, kids! Circle up!”

All of us gathered into the circle without a second to spare. Mikasa had relocated from her former place next to me to the closest empty seat to wherever Jean was. She slid into the chair next to him, her leg bumping up against his. Marco sat down on the other side of him. completing his little cocoon of happiness with romance on one side and friendship on the other. I glared at him and he didn’t care. Good. For. Fucking. Him.

“Hey,” a voice next to me said. “Sorry about earlier. They just needed me to help work out the calendar stuff. Apparently everyone wants me to be their organizer now.”

I turned to see Armin settling into the chair next to mine. “It’s okay,” I said, a smirk crawling onto my face. “I did just fine without you.”

Armin rolled his eyes. “What a great self-esteem boost you are, Eren.”

I laughed under my breath and poked him, earning myself a mock-annoyed slap on the wrist before Hanji clicked her pen incessantly against her plastic clipboard to get everyone’s attention. “Hey! Guys! Last meeting! We want to be productive today!”

“Um, we just spent the entire pre-meeting time making sure that this _won’t_ be the last meeting,” Reiner cut in.

“Fine. The last _official_ meeting,” Hanji elaborated. “Anyways...”

“Anyways, there are people who still haven’t marked days on the calendar and you know who you are. We will find you!” Bertolt interjected, finishing up what his boyfriend started.

“Okay, okay. Jesus christ on a stick.” Hanji pushed her glasses up on her nose and recomposed herself. “Since this is the last meeting, we want to make sure we get everything we can out of it. So...” Her eyes swept through the circle, a devious smirk tugging at her lips. “If anyone has anything they haven’t shared with the group yet, I want to get everything out in the open today.”

“Okay,” Jean said snobbishly (As if he could say it any other way). “How are you going to do that?”

“We’re going to play a little something I call the Lying Game.”

Marco sighed and dropped his head into his hands. “Oh god, not this again...”

“Okay,” Reiner ventured. “You gonna tell the new kids how to play?” He didn’t seem the least bit nervous. Not only had he probably played this before, but he knew he had nothing to hide. To us, Reiner Braun was an open fucking book.

“It works like this,” Hanji began. “I’ll start by picking out a random person from the group, and I’ll ask them to tell me something about someone else that they think the group doesn’t already know. And if the person who you’ve decided to expose tries to stop you, they have to finish up what you were going to tell us themselves. If the original teller knows the other person is lying, then they get the story back and they can finish it the way they were originally going to. If too many people in the group already know what their fact is, they have to find another one to tell us. In other words, there’s no way of getting out of this. So let’s get started, shall we?”

I felt my stomach drop out of its place and land somewhere near my feet. Of all the things Hanji could have devised for the last day, it had to be this.

The lone admin crossed her legs in front of her and scanned the group. “I’ll start with someone easy...” she said pensively, then narrowed her eyes and pointed in front of her. “Marco.”

The freckled messiah sat bolt upright, his head abruptly separating from his hands. “Huh? Me?”

“Yes, you.” Hanji smirked. “Tell us something we don’t know about...” She scanned the group. “Jean.”

Marco glanced nervously over at his best friend, who fixed him with a glare that said _You’d better not make this embarrassing, Freckles_. He sighed and turned back to the group. “Okay. Something you don’t know... um... well, about a month ago, before Jean asked Mikasa out, I was over at his house and I needed to write something down for him, so I went over to his desk to look for a pencil, and I found this-”

“W-Wait, no! No, not that one!” Jean shouted out, stopping Marco mid-sentence. His friend stared at him, dumbfounded.

“What? I didn’t think this one would be that bad.”

“It is! Come on, she’s right there! Pick something else!”

“But I already-”

“Let him finish, Jean!” Connie protested.

Hanji chimed in. “Yeah, I liked where this was going!”

Well, that was how I found out about Jean’s shitty love poetry for Mikasa.

The Lying Game continued in a similarly loud and awkward fashion. I found out about Reiner’s secret love for the Spice Girls, made a note not to leave Ymir unattended around plastic knives and learned why I should never trust Connie to toast my marshmallows if I valued my hair’s safety. Apparently Hanji thought that the best way to close the summer session would be to force the entire group to participate in a nice, friendly game of screwing each other over. As a man who hadn’t had much experience in party games for several years prior to joining the group, I had an excuse for having forgotten what would eventually happen. The way these games always go, if they last long enough, they always come around full circle. No one escapes. And before I knew it...

“Okay, Armin, I want you to tell us something we don’t know about Eren!”

My spine snapped straight and I looked reflexively at my best friend sitting next to me. He glanced nervously over at me. I could practically see the story I had told him weeks earlier flitting across the surface of his complicated little brain. _Don’t tell them_ , I tried to telepathically beg him. _Please don’t tell them that. Anything but that._

“Alright. Um... Most of you guys know that Eren was in Trost for liver surgery last year.”

_God fucking dammit, Armin, can’t I trust you to do anything right?_

The entire support group turned to stare at him. And, indirectly, me. I could already feel my blood starting to well up in my face. This was all going so downhill, so fast.

“And... Levi was his nurse.”

The room went silent for a second. I looked around the circle, my heart shuddering in my chest. Armin stared blankly at the circle and didn’t say another word. I was on the edge of collapsing with relief. Was that it? Was he finished?

“And?” Connie prompted, waiting for my friend to fill in the gaps.

“And nothing. That’s it.”

“That’s your big mystery fact, Eren?” Jean asked, sounding more than a little disappointed.

“Y-yeah,” I stammered, trying not to sound too relieved. “I knew Levi before I joined the support group. Or I did, for a while. That’s it.” I smiled, satisfied with my performance. _Smooth as always, Eren._

Hanji grinned mischievously at the both of us. “I knew that already!”

Armin’s face fell a bit. “But... that still counts, right?”

“Hmmmm...” Hanji sat back in her chair, nibbling thoughtfully on the end of her pen. “Let me think... did any of you guys know that?”

Mikasa spoke up. “Well, I did, but I’ve known him forever, so...”

“Anyone else?” Hanji chirped, looking expectantly around the circle. “Any takers? No?”

And, just like that, Jean Kirschstein happened.

“Um, actually, I did know about that,” he cut in, raising his hand as if we couldn’t tell who was speaking by the arrogant tone in his voice. “Mikasa told me while we were out on a date last week.”

As my luck would have it, no one spoke up to point out that there was no way that could be true. I glared at him, trying to channel as much hate in his direction as humanly possible. _Wow, spreading lies and flaunting your relationship at the same time. Way to multitask, Jean._

“Really?” Hanji said, glancing curiously at him. “Well, that’s three members. Looks like you’re going to have to go deeper, Armin.” She returned her hawk-like gaze to Armin, who seemed to shrink back into his chair.

“Deeper? I-I don’t know if... Well, if you really need to know, then-”

“Armin,” I said. “Don’t.”

My friend turned towards me, his clear blue eyes wide and his cheeks flushed with nerves. His face was practically screaming _EREN WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? I HAD A PLAN!_

It took a second for me to realize what I had just done.

“Shit.”

“Well, Eren? You want to tell us a little more about this story?”

I turned toward Hanji, my face starting to burn all over again. “I-I really don’t know what he-”

“Hey, no lying in the Lying Game!” the LPN from hell proclaimed. “You definitely knew what he was going to say, since you stopped him from saying it. Rules of the game state that you have to tell us yourself. Now spill.”

I froze in my seat, my throat tight and my heart slamming restlessly against my ribs. My head whipped around, trying to look at every member of the group at once. They were all staring at me.

_What do they expect me to tell them?_

“Um... I...”

I could always just lie about it. None of them knew the truth about what happened. None of them even knew that it had happened at all. Except Mikasa. And Armin. And Hanji, if Levi happened to have told her. And if Hanji knew, I was beyond fucked.

“Okay... um... last summer, I-”

The door opened and cut me short.

“Oi, I’m here. Nobody panic.”

I spun around in my chair. It was all I could do not to melt into a puddle of relief. He was here. He’d finally shown up.

My nurse-turned-social-savior shut the conference room door behind him and headed to the circle, dropping into the last empty chair available. It just so happened to be next to me.

“Hey, brat,” he said casually to me before turning to address the group. My heart had a small seizure before finally collapsing from exhaustion. “Sorry I’m late. I got caught up in pediatric oncology. Erwin needed me on hand for something.”

Hanji smiled brightly at him. “So that’s where you’ve been all this time.”

“Yeah,” Levi said flatly, fixing her with his usual deadened stare. “Was I having auditory hallucinations in the hallway, or did I hear you guys publically humiliating each other in here?”

“Of course we weren’t,” Hanji said innocently. “We were just-”

“Hanji had us play the Lying Game until you showed up,” Marco blurted out.

Everyone in the group turned to stare at him. He stared nonchalantly back.

Freckled Jesus strikes again.

“Hanji,” Levi said, his voice sharp. “I told you we don’t do the Lying Game anymore. Ever. You remember what happened last time.”

Hanji sighed, looking defeated. Annie decided at that moment to tug on Bertolt’s sleeve and whisper something in his ear. He straightened up once she’d finished and said, “Annie wants to know what happened last time.”

Hanji blushed so fast that I was surprised her glasses didn’t fog up. “We don’t talk about that anymore.”

“But you were the one who brought the Lying Game back,” Levi countered. “Now it’s your turn. I’d say it’s only fair.”

Hanji just about fell to pieces explaining how “what happened last time” meant the time she accidentally made one of the YCSG kids cry while talking about his symptoms for the sake of the Lying Game. The group had made an agreement to never play it again after that incident. But, of course, that rule only applied when Levi was supervising.

As far as I could tell, it would now apply at all times.

The rest of the meeting went by far less painfully. Most of the feelings that the group had to share were worries about how this was the last official meeting of the year, they might not be able to keep up, they want to stay with all the awesome friends they had made over the summer and whatever else. The memory of Levi’s words from the first few weeks echoed in the back of my mind.

_Odds are, at least one or two of them are going to end up going terminal. I’ve seen kids die their way out of YCSG before. It happens every year._

I shivered and tried to push the thoughts away. I was here with the people that I had learned to call my friends right here and now. I tried my hardest to focus on that and nothing else. I didn’t want to think about which one of them I would be losing first.

But old habits die harder than cancer victims. I thought about it anyway.  
  


* * *

 

Four in the afternoon came far too soon.

We tried to ignore it for as long as we could. I noticed one or two of the members glancing nervously at the clock hanging up on the wall of the conference room. I risked a few myself. Eventually we stopped looking. And we just stayed and kept talking. And talking. And talking.

The only reason we ever stopped was the nurse who tapped on the conference room door nearly half an hour after the meeting was supposed to end.

Hanji glanced up at the clock and squealed. “Oh my god! Is that seriously what time it is?” She shot up out of her chair and dashed to the door. “Hi, Gunther,” she said to the tan, spiky-haired nurse standing outside. “Can we help you?”

“No. I’m just here to let you guys know that they’re going to need 4A for the autoimmune diseases seminar at five thirty,” he replied matter-of-factly. “You guys might want to clear out sometime soon.”

“Oh. Thanks for telling us. We’ll be getting right to it.” Hanji shut the door without another word and turned around to face the group. She took in a deep breath and let it out in a long, dejected sigh. “Well... You guys heard him. You know what this means.”

And, just like that, the last official meeting of the summer was over.

A few of us stayed behind to help clean up the snacks and put the furniture back where it was before us cancer teens had come in and screwed it all up. Ymir said that her shoulder was starting to ache, so she and Krista left first. Once conference room 4A looked normal again, the entire group moved outside. Marco’s ride had been waiting in the parking lot since four, so everyone got a quick hug from the resident half-human and Jean took a quick taste of the inside of Mikasa’s mouth. (Right in front of me. How fucking shameless can you get?) Connie called his mom to let her know that support group had run late, and he left next, taking Sasha with him. Armin was next. Then Annie. Reiner and Bertolt, since they had their own car, were the last to leave. Then it was just Mikasa and me.

“Dad’s supposed to be picking us up today, isn’t he?” I deadpanned.

Mikasa exhaled sharply through her nose. “Yeah.”

At least the meeting had run late so we wouldn’t have to be standing here nearly as long.

I just barely heard the quiet _shiff_ sound of the automatic glass-paneled doors of the cancer center entrance sliding open over the low, steady hum of activity in the parking lot. Mikasa was playing with her phone and didn’t bother looking up, so I had to be the one to look over and see who it was.

I never thought that it would be Levi and Hanji.

“Hey, kids,” Hanji sang, catching Mikasa’s attention as well as mine. “Didn’t think you’d still be here.”

“We did,” Mikasa said. “It’s pretty much a rule of thumb now that our dad is always late.”

“That’s an unfortunate rule to be keeping,” Levi murmured, leaning up against the wall next to me. Hanji moved over to Mikasa and the two of them flanked us like a pair of LPN bookends.

“It’s not his fault, really. He’s just really busy at work,” Mikasa quickly said. I looked over at her, my eyes narrow. _You just go ahead and keep on believing that, Mikasa._

“What are you guys doing out here?” I asked, trying to drag the conversation away from my dad.

“We snuck out to see if you two were still hanging around,” Hanji said. “And look at that. You are!”

“But don’t you guys have work to do or anything?”

“Erwin’s got another four nurses in his staff. I’m pretty sure he won’t miss us if we slip outside for a few minutes,” Levi answered. “Just until your ride shows up.”

I let a quiet laugh slip out, looking at him with a smile playing at my lips. “You guys came out just to see us?”

“No, we came out because we love to stare at parked cars in our spare time.”

“Levi,” Hanji grumbled, casting a goggled glare at her fellow admin. She turned her attention back to me and Mikasa. “He’s joking, of course. We want to stick with you guys as long as we can. You two are going to be staying through the off season, right?” She stared hopefully at the two of us, her eyes practically sparkling.

“Yeah,” I said as quickly as I could. “I-I think so, anyway.”

“Of course we are,” Mikasa reaffirmed, giving me a sharp nudge in the ribs. “He’s not dropping out of the group just yet.”

Hanji tilted her head. “What about you?”

“Well, I’m going to be a little busier during the year, but I’ll still try to make it whenever I can.” Mikasa finished off with a smile.

“Good,” Hanji chirped, her face lighting up. “We can’t wait to see you guys somewhere other than this lousy old popsicle stand.” She nodded back towards the massive brick wall behind us.

Hanji kept on talking after that. But I’m not sure what it was about, since I stopped listening to her after about two sentences. I started gazing at Levi, hoping relentlessly that he wouldn’t notice. My head was floundering in an endless sea of feelings. If what Marco said was true, this could be the last time I’d be seeing him. After this, he would drop out of my life all over again. I might see him if I joined the support group again next summer. But even then, there was a string of ten months between then and now. And in that time span, just about anything could happen.

Stupidly, I opened my mouth and murmured his name.

“Levi?”

He turned toward me and his eyes met mine, sending a crackle of energy running down my spine. “Yeah, brat?” he responded, his voice just as level as ever.

“Are you going to be staying with the group in the off season?” I asked. I caught the note of wistfulness in my voice and pretended that I hadn’t. “I-I’m just wondering,” I added as casually as I could.

Levi let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “I don’t know, Eren. Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll have to see how my classes at Sina are this year and how my hours at Trost work out.”

“But if it was up to you, would you?”

Levi was quiet for a long time. My heart sank lower with every second that ticked by. Then he spoke up again.

“It sucked less this year than it did last year. So yeah. I probably would.”

“Why?” I asked before I knew what I was saying.

“There was a lot of improvement in the attendance,” he said flatly, as if he were talking about statistics. He glanced over at me, and my heart did a swan dive straight onto the pavement.

I had no idea what the hell that was supposed to mean. But what the hell had I expected him to say? _You_? I shouldn’t have been so fucking ridiculous.

A few minutes later, my dad’s silver Highlander pulled into the parking lot. This was it. It was the last official meeting of the year, and we finally had to leave.

Mikasa and I stepped away from the brick wall behind us and turned towards the two LPNs who had become admins, then our friends over the course of two and a half months. “Well,” I said, my voice rasping on the way out. “I guess this is it, then.”

Hanji gave the both of us a heartfelt smile. “Only until the next meeting. I’ll text you guys the time and place, once we work it out.”

“Okay,” Mikasa agreed, giving Hanji a small nod and the slightest of smiles.

I glanced sideways at her, my eyebrows raised. “You have Hanji’s phone number?”

“Yeah. We exchanged when I signed us up. It was just a requirement,” she said pointedly to me. “I’ll give it to you later.”

I sighed and gave her an acquiescent look, then straightened up and looked over my shoulder at the parking lot. My dad was pulling up to the curb next to us. I caught a glimpse of his face through the passenger window. He looked tired. No surprise there, since he spent almost every hour of his life in that stupid lab of his.

“Hope we’ll see you again soon, kids,” Hanji cooed. She stepped forward from the wall and stretched her arms out toward us. I stared at her for a second, and she flicked her fingers toward herself to reinforce the invitation. “Come on, then.”

Mikasa went in for the hug first, wrapping her arms around Hanji and squeezing with the deadly force that her MMA arm muscles gave her. Hanji squeaked, but didn’t complain. My sister glanced backwards at me. “Get over here.”

I did as I was told and got whatever life was left in me squeezed out by Hanji. “You’d better be showing up at our next meeting. You hear me, basket case?”

“Okay, okay, I will,” I laughed. I didn’t know that I had gotten another nickname. There was no question as to how I’d earned it.

Once Hanji finally released me from her emotional death grip of a hug, I looked over at Levi. I couldn’t help myself. If he wasn’t going to stay with the group when it went unofficial, then this would be the last time I saw him. And I wanted to keep my mental picture of him as clear as it could possibly be. Memorizing him would be enough. He wasn’t going to come up and hug me like Hanji.

Except he did.

I stopped in the middle of my staring and froze. My legs went numb and my insides turned into slush. Levi was pressed up against me. His arms were around my waist. He was squeezing me.

I heard the faint noise of my heart exploding into a million pieces.

“L-Levi...” I choked.

“I don’t do this for many people, so... if you can, accept it, okay?” he grumbled into my shoulder.

I threw my arms around him without question. “I didn’t think you were the type for hugging.”

“I’m not. Not with most people, anyway.”

Warmth blazed through me as if someone had lit a fire in my bones. “Does this mean I’m not most people anymore?”

“Nope.” Levi’s arms loosened and he took a step back. “Congratulations, brat. You’ve graduated.”

“So... am I going to see you again after this?” I asked, silently begging him not to see the blush that I felt burning in my cheeks.

“Maybe,” he said. His lips curved into a small smile. It was probably the first time I had ever seen one come from him. “I’ll see you around, brat.”

The passenger door of the Highlander slammed shut behind me. I looked over my shoulder. Mikasa was already strapped in. I forced myself to turn away, open the back seat door and climb in.

I still looked back at the last second and flashed Levi a smile. “See you, nurseman.”

My dad stepped on the gas, and we left. That was it.

 

* * *

 

I didn’t talk much on the ride home. Of course, Mikasa made the most of the short fifteen minutes we had with our Dad. It was probably the longest we would be seeing him that day. Despite how detached he was from our lives, he’d still somehow known that it was our last official meeting that day. So he rapid-fired questions at us, Mikasa did all the answering, and I sat in the back seat and watched the both of them with my mouth practically bolted shut.

“So this is the last meeting for you guys, huh?”

“Yeah. Well, officially. The group’s permission to use the conference room runs out at the end of the month, but they’re still going to try and meet up now and then.”

“Are you going to try and stick with them?”

“Well, I’m going to do the best I can. You know how busy I get.”

“Of course I do. It’s like you’ve never got enough to do, but you still somehow balance everything. Don’t know how you do it. You must be some kind of supergirl.”

Mikasa laughed a little. “I do my best. I’m pretty sure Eren’s going to be able to make it to all of the new meetings, though. Really, he needs it more than I do.”

“Mikasa, he’s right there.”

“Oh, relax. He’s heard this all before.”

“Well? Is she right, Eren?”

I jumped in my seat at the sound of my name. “Huh?” I mumbled, blinking like a small child with sandbox in its eyes. My dad had been speaking to me. I’d almost been too busy resenting him too notice.

“Hm.” My dad glanced over his shoulder for a second before turning back to the road. “He must have left his brain back at Trost. You alright there, kiddo?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” Wow. It was so much easier to lie to someone I barely saw.

“So you still haven’t told me. How was support group for you all summer?”

“Oh... um... It was okay, I guess,” I said noncommittally.

“Eren’s made a ton of friends,” Mikasa cut in, answering the question for me. “And, Dad, do you remember that nurse that he had last summer when he had the surgery?”

“His nurse?” my dad mused, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in thought. “His name was Levi, wasn’t it? Never got to know him very well. He always struck me as a little...” He shrugged, seeming unsure as to how to finish his commentary.

“He was one of the admins of the group.”

“He was?” my dad exclaimed, as if it were the most astounding thing in the world. “Well. What are the chances of that happening? How was it seeing Levi again, Eren?”

It was unbelievable. It was the most unlikely coincidence that fate had just happened to throw at me. It was like having my only friend walk out of my life and suddenly decide to walk back in again. In fact, that was exactly what it was. Levi had become my friend all over again. And then something more. Or at least he had in my mind. And holy fucking christ, Dad, you could not even begin to imagine what I am feeling right now.

“It was kind of weird when it first happened. But being able to see him again was nice.”

“It was nice? That’s it?” Clearly my reply was a little more concise than what my dad had been expecting.

I shrugged. “There’s really not much I an say to describe it.”

“Alright,” my dad said. I took note of the mild tone of defeat in his voice. “So, you want to tell me a little about all the friends you guys made? And... your, er... the other guy?” I almost laughed. My dad seemed just as averse to Mikasa’s relationship with Jean as I was. But then again, he was averse to just about any relationship Mikasa got into. I guess not liking the person your daughter is dating is just a universal Dad Thing.

Mikasa launched into an elaborate description of everyone we’d met through YCSG so far. She talked about how enthusiastic Hanji was about everything she did, the way Reiner had been adopted as the group’s communal big brother, Bertolt’s slight limp when he walked because of the prosthetic bones in his legs, Sasha’s scary eating habits, the way Connie always acted high even though he was far too sick to have ever touched drugs in his life, Armin’s college courses and hidden musical talent, and everything else that I had noticed about the group and decided to keep to myself. The discussion took up the entire ten minutes left of the car ride. The Highlander pulled into our driveway just as Mikasa finished up explaining that Levi’s face still hardly changed its expression at all.

“Well, here we are,” my dad said with feigned enthusiasm. “I’ve got to get back to the lab. Ellari’s probably left me a billion texts updating me on how the staphylococcus culture is reacting to the new cocktail we’ve given them.”

“Alright. We won’t keep you,” Mikasa said. She reached an arm across the car to give our dad a quick side-hug. “See you tonight?”

“I’ll try to get home at a reasonable time,” he replied with a tired smile. “See you later, Eren.”

“See you.” I climbed out of the car and shut the door behind me. “If you’re even here later,” I grumbled under my breath once I knew he couldn’t hear me. My dad backed out of the driveway and took off down the street, disappearing around the corner. I turned and marched towards the door, my hand digging in my pocket for my keys.

“He’s trying, you know,” a voice behind me said. I turned around. Mikasa was standing there, watching me with one hand playing with the fringe of her scarf.

“I know he is,” I deadpanned as I jammed my key into the lock and twisted. The door opened and I stepped inside.

Mikasa was right. He was trying. He just wasn’t trying hard enough.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I did not meant to spring all of this stuff on you out of nowhere. There was an end date on the flyer way back in the earlier chapters, wherever the hell that was. And, whoops, here it is.  
> Don't worry, dear viewers. The end of the support group's charter from Trost to use 4A does not in the least mark the end of this story.  
> Now I have a lot of writing to do if I want to stay ahead of my updates.  
> See you next chapter.


	12. When I Said Get Out Of My Life, I Didn't Really Mean It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's officially been over a year since I started writing this piece of shit.  
> Now a year and almost a month and still under 800 ao3 hits later, I'm still not feeling any better about having created this monstrosity in the first place.  
> TRIGGER WARNING: Just like the rest of this story, this chapter involves allusions to terminal disease and character death. Just thought you people should know. But I've been saying that sort of thing from the beginning, so if you didn't know what kind of mess you'd be getting yourself into... well, sorry you're only finding out about this now.  
> I thought it would be a good time to point this out, now that it's been so long since I started writing this ghastly stain of a fanfiction. I started writing this fanfiction because, well... the plot upset me so much that I had to. I couldn't keep it in my head. And for that, I'm sorry.  
> Now the worst part of everything is knowing exactly where this story is going to go and having no idea if the few people who have read it are reciprocating or not.  
> I probably just gave myself unrealistic expectations for this whole escapade. Nothing I've ever written had gathered a following before, and just because I got too enthusiastic about one singular piece doesn't mean that anyone else is going to. All this time I've been spamming the author notes with self-promoting bullshit and trying to get people to leave reviews and make fanposts on tumblr and follow my blog just so i could get a ton of affirmation that I probably shouldn't have been fishing for in the first place.  
> I'm sorry for writing all of that.  
> In other news, I'm going to be getting rid of my author blog. If any of you have bothered following it, you are probably fully aware of how shitty it is and how little maintenance I gave it. The reason was that I've been deathly busy with school over the past year and have had literally next to no time to keep up a blog in addition to homework and writing my actual content and all the other bullshit that gets involved in trying to become internet famous.  
> Also, more importantly, I'm going to be changing my pen name. I don't know what to, but I've decided that much, and I can't keep up with my art and writing tags if my blog is under a new name.  
> I'm still following "fic:tmiu" and "fic: the monsters inside us" if it matters to anyone, though. So... that's still something.  
> Now let's just pretend I didn't waste half an hour writing all of that and move on.  
> Story time.

 

 

After the official meetings ended, my life fell straight back into the pit that it had been in at the beginning of the summer.

Before I knew it, I was back in my routine of spending almost all of my time at home. My days were long, lonely and boring. I didn’t see anyone but Mikasa, my homeschooling tutor every other day or so, and, on a rare occasion (more rare than is probably healthy), my dad.

That wasn’t to say that seeing my dad so little was anything new. He usually tried to pitch into our lives a little more over the summer than during the rest of the year. My guess was that he assumed we wouldn’t have nearly as many other things to keep us busy. More accurately, when Mikasa wouldn’t have other things to keep her busy. Because (how many fucking times have I said this already?) I am literally never busy.

So in all this time of not being busy, I had a lot of time to think. And a majority of all that time that I spent thinking was devoted to one thing.

That thing, as you could probably guess by now, was Levi.

I had left the last meeting in a state of total confusion. I didn’t know when I would be seeing him next. It could have been at the first unofficial meeting, which was supposed to be scheduled a week and a half after the last of the official season in Trost. Or it might have been at the first official meeting at the beginning of the next summer, a whole ten months away from the place in the time-space continuum where I currently was. Or it could be never.

My opinion of _never_ landed somewhere between “this is probably the best option possible” and “holy shit why is that even a possibility I can’t fucking handle this.”

The term _hot mess_ didn’t even come close to describing my feelings for Levi. On one end of the spectrum, he was probably the most amazing person I had ever met. He was smart, funny, dedicated, responsible, supportive, had about as much enthusiasm about life as I did and the sexiest resting bitch face that I would ever lay eyes on. And that didn’t even take into account the fact that he had the body of a 90s anime love interest hidden behind his generic mint green scrubs. Or the number of dreams I’d had about him that had resulted in an awkward morning boner. And the fact that they were sometimes accompanied by a small puddle of cum that forced me to wake up early to sneak my sheets into the laundry before anyone noticed.

No, that one I had after Jean’s party was not the only one. It was also far from the worst.

But no matter how many good things I picked out about Levi (and trust me, there were a lot), there were always things that got in the way. The disillusionment that Levi and I put so much effort into maintaining might have been something we could connect over, but it also set us apart. He didn’t seem to be the kind of person who cared much about anything. Or anyone. And that included me. The fact that he was stuck dealing with basket cases like me for a living probably didn’t help much either.

No matter how many angles I looked at it from, Levi had no reason to want to be with me. He was a healthy, functioning young adult who had a steady, relatively well-paying job and was receiving a high education from a popular state university. I was a wilted, faulty-at-best teenager with a depressing home life who spent his entire life in the house, including my homeschooling sessions, which as far as I knew were nothing out of the ordinary. Not like his accelerated pre-med program. Add to that the fact that my body was bony and scarred while his was the closest to perfect that I would probably ever see, that he had a promising future and I was stuck on the road to basically nowhere, that he was twenty fucking years old and I was still just a kid. I didn’t care that he was four years older than me. It wasn’t that big of a gap. But that didn’t mean that he would have any interest in dating a sniveling brat like myself.

A sniveling male brat.

And there was another layer to add to the already-impenetrable walls that separated us. I didn’t know if Levi was even into guys. Even if he were able to look past all the other crap that was wrong with me, something as stupid as which reproductive organs I was born with might have been where he drew the line. For all I knew, I could have been crushing on someone who wasn’t even interested in my gender. How fucking pathetic is that?

And then there was that other little issue.

The one that had to do with why I had joined the Youth Cancer Support Group in the first place.

The reason why I had met Levi at Trost the summer before.

The one that had been buried deep in my bones for over four years.

But I tried not to think about that one too much. It just made me sad when I did. And as far as I was concerned, I was sad enough as it was.

Long story short, I couldn’t decide how to define the way I felt about Levi, or what I wanted to do about it. I wanted him more than I had ever wanted anything. But at the same time, I didn’t. I wanted him to get out of my life and let me forget about him, just like I had the summer before. It would sure make things a hell of a lot easier. Anything would be, as long as it meant I wouldn’t have to be beating myself up over this until I was reduced to a cancerous pulp.

As much as I didn’t want it to happen, I would have been saving myself a lot of wasted energy if I just never saw Levi again.

 

* * *

 

After what felt like an eternity of staying home and overthinking, the first unofficial meeting of the Youth Cancer Support Group finally arrived.

It was 2:47 in the afternoon. I was lying on the floor of my bedroom, surrounded by a flipped-open textbook and scattered notebook pages from the physics lesson that my tutor had just taught me (correction: attempted to teach me) via Skype a few hours earlier. I had been home so long that I had pretty much forgotten what day it was. Mikasa had started school a week earlier, and for me, it was back to staying home alone all day, every day.

I wasn’t able to focus on the homework that my tutor had left me right at that moment. Levi was swimming through my head again. You know, just like he had been for the past two weeks. I had collapsed after half an hour of staring hopelessly at my notes and resorted to waiting for Mikasa to come home.

In the middle of it all, my phone went off for what seemed like no reason.

I rolled over onto my side and crawled across my carpet, over to the outlet where my phone was plugged into the wall to charge. I slapped a hand over it and pressed the green phone icon on the right side of the screen. The thing stopped ringing and I pressed it to my ear.

“Hnnnnnggggghello?” I mumbled.

“Eren? Are you still at home?” Mikasa’s voice demanded from the other end.

I pushed myself upright and sighed. “Um, _yes_ ,” I said flatly. “Is there anywhere else that I should be?”

I heard shuffling around on the other end and something that sounded like an aggravated groan. A second later, Mikasa was back. “Eren, you can not tell me that you actually forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“Oh my god, you are not fucking-” More noise that I didn’t understand. “Eren, the support group is meeting at the library today. I’m already halfway there. You said you would meet me before the meeting started!”

A feeling hit me that was similar to the one you’d get after punching yourself in the face. “Wait... that’s today?!”

Static filled my ear to signify Mikasa sighing heavily through her nose. “ _Yes_ , Eren. It’s today. Now get your ass out here.”

“Okay, okay. I’m on my way.”

Mikasa hung up before I could say another word. I jumped up from my spot on the floor, kicking my physics into an even more disordered pile as I raced to the bathroom to get a good look at myself. After running through a full outfit change and combing my hair twelve times trying to get it to flatten out, I finally decided that I looked sort of okay and ran out the door. Of course, the running stopped right then and there. Like I have said so many times before, my body kind of sucks at doing what it’s supposed to. I had to slow down to a relatively brisk walk the rest of the way to the library, which still left me panting and sweating by the time I reached the front steps. I had wasted around five minutes fixing myself up. I didn’t know why I thought it was necessary. It wasn’t like Levi would be there waiting for me.

And, sure enough, he wasn’t.

When I stepped through the doors and into the blessedly air-conditioned front lobby inside, everyone who would be showing up was already there. I made my way as quickly as my already exhausted legs would allow to the reading room in the back of the first floor, where the support group had gathered on a collection of beanbags thrown together between two old donated couches. The first unofficial meeting had already commenced. I glanced around at the group before me. There were eleven people in total. I found Armin, Reiner, Marco, Bertolt, Krista, Connie, Sasha, Annie, Jean, Mikasa already situated in his lap, Hanji sitting at the head of the circle with the same plastic clipboard she’d been tapping all summer...

And no Levi.

I blinked and did a double-take of the circle, as if this were actually a surprise to me. Yep. I had been seeing straight the first time. There was no Levi Ackerman to be seen anywhere.

For some reason, that disappointed me a lot.

I dashed into the circle and quietly snagged a spot next to Armin. My best friend looked over at me and a smile lit up his face.

“Hey,” I whispered, letting whoever-happened-to-be-speaking’s voice rise above mine. “Sorry I’m late.”

Armin gave me a little shrug. “It’s okay. We just got started. You didn’t miss much.”

We’d only just started. And Levi wasn’t here. This was almost exactly what had happened at the last meeting, minus the little incidence of me showing up late. I glanced toward the doorway that I had just walked through. There were people outside, but none of them came in. I sighed, feeling my shoulders loosen just a little bit. Maybe Levi just wasn’t here yet. Maybe all I had to do was wait.

And I did wait. All I did was wait. I sat through the meeting, quiet as Armin in a room full of strangers and kept my eyes glued to the door. I didn’t pay much attention to what anyone said. From the bits and pieces that I caught throughout the meeting, most of it all sounded the same anyway. People were so glad that the group was back together again. Medications sucked but were still working. Nobody was dead yet. So I guess that meant life was okay so far.

Too bad Levi wasn’t around to see it.

Just under an hour of sitting and staring later, I heard Hanji’s voice ring out above the rest.

“Well, that’s it for today, kids. We don’t have anyone to kick us out of here, though. So... you guys can hang around for as long as you want, I guess.”

My head whipped back around to face the circle. _Wait, the meeting is over? Has it really been that long?_

Hanji stood up from her beanbag and clutched her clipboard to her chest. “Well, it’s been fun, but I have to get back to work. Got some research to do,” she said.

“You’re still coming to Thursday, though, right?” Krista prodded.

Hanji beamed at her. “Of course. We changed the hours to fit that one in, after all.”

I stayed put in my beanbag and watched as Hanji exchanged a round of hugs with the group before walking out of the room, her faithful little clipboard at her side. The rest of the group came to life and started talking, laughing and doing whatever, trying to make up for the almost-two-week hiatus that had split us all up. I wasn’t feeling up to any of it. All I could think about was the doorway, how I’d spent an entire hour staring at it and yet not even one person had come through. The first unofficial meeting was over, and Levi hadn’t shown up for even the last few seconds. I guessed this meant he wouldn’t be staying with us in the off season after all.

Well, at least that took care of one problem.

“Hey, Eren. Is something wrong?”

I jumped in my seat and I jerked my head up. Armin was sitting on the nearest couch and leaning over me, a touch of concern on his face.

“No,” I answered as fast as I could. “I just... I’m feeling a little off today, I guess.”

“Oh.” Armin seemed relieved. “You’re not the only one. Two weeks was kind of hard on everyone.”

“Really? That’s good to-”

“Hey! Did you think that sitting like a lump for the entire meeting was going to keep us from noticing that you walked in late?”

By the time I heard the loud, boisterous voice, it was already too late. A huge pair of warm, callused hands grabbed me by the shoulders and hauled me to my feet. Reiner stood in front of me, grinning like a cheshire cat on Prozac. He screwed up his face in fake disapproval. “How dare you show up late to the first meeting of the off season? Doesn’t this support group mean anything to you?”

“I- I really didn’t... I just forgot, it’s been so long, I...” I spluttered.

Reiner laughed and gave my shoulders a strong, friendly squeeze. “I’m just messing with you. It’s great to have you back, Eren.” He pulled me in for one of his rib-cracking bear hugs that I felt like I hadn’t gotten in years. I wrapped my arms around his massive body as far as they would go, ignoring the lumpy feeling of his melanoma skin under the thin fabric of his shirt. Despite the fact that my lungs were being squeezed flat, it felt kind of nice.

I was released by Reiner only to get wrapped up in Betolt’s long, lanky spidermonkey arms. Once he let go of me, I got tacklehugged by Connie and Sasha, punched in the shoulder by Annie... basically everyone in the group showed me some kind of affection in their own way. Except for Ymir. But then, I wasn’t really expecting to get anything from her.

It was only then that I finally noticed.

I did another quick once-over of the support group. As it turned out, Levi wasn’t the only one who hadn’t shown up at the first unofficial meeting of the off-season.

“Hey... where’s Ymir?”

Armin glanced sideways at me from his face-to-face text conversation with Annie. “Ymir? I don’t know. You could probably ask Krista about it, if you want to know.”

I took another quick look around the gaggle of cancer victims and found Krista sitting on the arm of one of the couches, looking perfect as usual and having a friendly conversation with Marco. I approached them, my hands stuffed nervously in my pockets. “Hey, Krista, um, I was wondering... do you know where Ymir is?”

Krista turned to me, a slightly surprised look in her clear blue eyes before she gave me a sweet smile. “Hi, Eren.”

“H-hi,” I said, for some reason finding it necessary to greet her twice. “I just wanted to ask about Ymir.”

“Ymir?” Krista echoed, tilting her head to the side. “She’s staying home for today. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, really. I just noticed that she wasn’t here today, and I was kind of... I just wanted to know if she’s okay.”

Krista gave me another small smile. This time it didn’t seem to reach all the way to her eyes. “She’s fine. I was visiting earlier today. Her muscle aches were just bothering her more than usual, so she wasn’t really feeling up to coming in. She’d woken up with them, then had to sit through school all day, so I didn’t want to push her...” Krista trailed off and shrugged, kicking her dainty little legs against the side of the couch.

“Oh,” I said numbly. “Well... just let her know I hope she gets better soon.”

Krista smiled again. She did it the same way as before. “Okay. I will.”

 

* * *

 

“I feel so bad for her. I mean, you know better than anyone, I have MMA four nights a week, and I know what muscle aches are like. But how can they be so painful that you can’t even go out to sit in a circle for an hour?”

I gave Mikasa a noncommittal shrug as I straggled along next to her on the sidewalk. I wasn’t sure whether or not Krista would have wanted me telling other people about Ymir’s unfortunate medical issues, but cancer talk wasn’t exactly something that I was used to keeping to myself. Besides, if there was anything that I could trust Mikasa with, it was keeping things quiet as long as they needed to be that way. “It’s a cancer thing, I guess. Rhabdomyosarcomas attacks skeletal muscle. Maybe it’s a different kind of pain than what you get from exercising.”

“Like you would even know what either of those are like,” Mikasa said, turning away from me to stare at the sidewalk ahead of us. The library wasn’t too far from home, but I still felt like I’d run a marathon after the fifteen-minute walk from point A to B.

“Hey. Don’t judge me. I’m a special snowflake,” I shot back, my breath starting to feel heavy.

“Yeah, I guess you are,” Mikasa conceded, slowing her pace a little to let me catch up. “I wonder what part of a snowflake would get cancer.”

“Probably all of it. Since, you know, they’re basically made entirely of the same stuff.”

“What was keeping you before you showed up today?”

“Physics,” I grumbled. Mikasa hummed in agreement. Even after spending only a single week at school, we could both tell pretty clearly that physics was not going to be a favorite subject for either of us.

“Understandable,” she said, turning back to the sidewalk. “But the next meeting was basically all I heard from you right after the ending of the last one. How did you forget that it was today?”

I walked on in silence for a while, my hands digging into my pockets and my brain not sure how to answer. “I...um...”

_I was thinking about him. I was thinking about seeing him again, and never seeing him again, and him liking me back and him getting scared off by me and my problems, and losing him, and..._

“I was just distracted, I guess.”

“Oh,” Mikasa murmured. Her strong, healthy legs had once more carried her slightly ahead of me, and she had to drop back again to let me and my cancer-filled toothpicks catch up.

“He wasn’t there today.”

“Who wasn’t?”

My head whipped around to see that Mikasa was looking at me again. I hadn’t even realized I’d said the words out loud. I was just thinking them, and then suddenly my sister was staring at me and my cheeks were turning red.

“I-I...” I stuttered, trying to save myself the embarrassment. I couldn’t. “Levi.”

She was quiet for a second, as if she needed to stop and remember. Like she hadn’t even noticed that he was gone. “Oh. Right, he wasn’t.”

The two of us kept walking, the empty silence stretching between us. Mikasa kept looking at me, as if she expected me to fill it. Eventually I gave up and turned to her. “What?”

“Nothing. I was just wondering why you care so much.”

I quickly turned away and stared at the sidewalk. “What makes you think that?”

“The way you said it,” she answered. “You sounded upset about it.”

“I did?”

“Yeah.”

I couldn’t tell her. It wasn’t time for her to find out yet. In fact, if it were up to me, it probably never would be.

I would keep my feelings for Levi to myself. Just long enough for them to go away.

* * *

 

The second unofficial meeting took place that Thursday, seven PM, in the living room of Reiner’s house in Karanese. It was a pretty nice place, not excessively big, but still with enough space for him, his parents, his high-school-freshman brother and his little sister who probably could have been cast in a Justice commercial. The girl kept poking her head in and bothering Reiner while we were talking in the therapy circle, and his brother had to keep catching her and ushering her back upstairs. I couldn’t help feeling a little embarrassed for him. Having a family that close and smothery had to be exhausting. I couldn't even begin to imagine-

Okay, fine. I’ll admit it. Reiner’s family made me a little jealous.

Levi didn’t show up to that meeting, either. But judging by what had happened at the first meeting, I didn’t think he would be showing up at any of the meetings anymore. Ymir wasn’t there either. Or Krista. But I don’t think we’re ready to get into detail about the reasons for that just yet.

Nobody had much to talk about. There were some worries about slowly building school stress and keeping up with everything now that summer vacation had ended, but there was nothing serious. So after about half an hour, the conversation ended up drifting around on a sea of whatever the hell we felt like talking about. Reiner’s mom brought out nachos for everyone, and we all tried to get some before Sasha pounced on the tray and finished off everything that was left. I couldn’t help feeling like there was some huge dark cloud hanging over the group. Like there was something we all knew, but no one was willing to acknowledge.

It was Armin who finally broke the monotony.

“Hey, does anyone know where Krista and Ymir are?”

The entire group turned to stare at him. My friend’s face turned pink.

“Um... well, things have gotten a little rough for Ymir, so she couldn’t make it today. Krista wanted to be there for moral support,” Hanji hesitantly explained.

“Oh. That’s nice of her,” Marco put in shyly.

The invisible cloud was hanging over our heads so heavily that I felt like if I looked up I would see it instead of the ceiling. The group was quiet for a little bit longer, until Jean, being the blunt instrument that he was, decided to speak up. “So what’s going on with Ymir?”

Bertolt shifted a little on the couch, forcing Reiner to do the same. “Her cancer started acting up again.”

Jean’s face paled as if he had just realized he’d made an unintentional racist comment. “Oh.”

“Well, to be honest, it’s sort of always been active,” Reiner added. “Her doctor was never able to get her symptoms into total remission, and she already has mets in a few spots along her spine and arms from the original site in her shoulder. They’ve started her chemo back up again, and supposedly it’s hell on her muscles. I wouldn’t feel like going anywhere if I were her, either.”

The cloud hanging over us had dumped its rainshower onto our heads, then dissipated and let the figurative sun shine through. The room was quiet for a little while, no one sure what anyone should say next. Then Connie somehow magically steered the conversation somewhere else, and everyone managed to forget the ditch that we’d driven ourselves into for a bit. Then everyone started talking again (except for Annie). It was as if the dark little epiphany we’d all had never happened.

Well, it was like that until Reiner’s phone went off.

He glanced over at Bertolt, who he was still squished up against in order not to take up the whole couch. Or just because they wanted to sit that way. It could have been either one when it came to them. “Was that your phone?”

Bertolt wriggled his arm out from behind his boyfriend’s back and tugged his phone out of his pocket. “No,” he said, glancing down at the screen. “Must’ve been yours.”

Reiner shifted around a little as he worked his phone free of his pocket. He settled back down and unlocked the screen. “Hey. It’s from Krista,” he said with a smile. That was gone as soon as he opened the message. “Oh, god.”

“What is it?” Bertolt asked, leaning over to look at his boyfriend’s phone. The same dark expression appeared on his face. “Oh... Is that seriously what it looks like?”

Reiner nodded. “Yeah.”

“What is it? What did she send you?” Connie asked, leaning over from his place on the next cushion of the couch as if that would help him see the screen.

“It’s a picture,” Reiner said flatly. “Of Ymir.”

“Seriously? Let me see.”

“I guess so.”

Reiner tossed his phone to Connie as if we were playing a weird modernized version of Hot Potato. He caught it and tapped the screen to keep it from going dim. His face screwed up as soon as it was lit up again and he could see the picture that Krista had sent. “Oh my god. That looks like it hurts.”

Sasha got distracted from the nachos just long enough to say, “Seriously? What does she look like?”

So Connie handed the phone over to her. Then it was passed around the entire circle, the picture eliciting some kind of reaction from every single person who laid eyes on it. I felt a knot of dread forming in the pit of my stomach as the phone was made its way steadily closer to me. Eventually it was in my hands. And I finally saw exactly what all the others were getting so worked up about.

It was a picture of Ymir, just like Reiner had said. It had been taken from behind, her face turned on a three-quarter angle and a little blurry, as if she had heard the phone’s shutter clicking and turned around at the noise. She probably hadn’t known her picture was being taken. She must not have wanted Krista to take a picture of her. I wouldn’t have, if I were her. Not if my shoulder looked even half as bad as hers did.

Connie had been right. It did look like it hurt. A lot. In fact, it was scary. Ymir’s entire shoulder was swollen to nearly three times its normal size, as if someone had stabbed her with a bicycle pump and decided to have a little fun. The whole thing was crisscrossed with pressurized veins, some of them burst open under her skin and leaving nasty purple and yellowing bruises. Ymir looked a lot paler than when I had seen her last. The slightly darker blur of her freckles stood out as if someone had drawn them on with eyeliner, and her already-choppy hair looked like it was starting to thin out even more. Krista had added a little caption underneath. _Still staying strong! So proud of her_ , it said, with a little heart emoticon added to the end. It felt so wrong seeing it next to such a depressing picture.

As soon as the full impact of the picture set in, I wished that Krista had never sent it. Just by looking at it, I could tell what was happening in Ymir’s muscles. The original colony had started growing again. Her satellite colonies would be next, and then they would start to spread. And if the chemo didn’t kick in soon, they would keep spreading. And there was no predicting where they’d be headed next.

“Whoa.”

I glanced over my shoulder to see Armin leaning in and looking at the image in my hand. I quickly chucked the phone at him and pulled my knees up against my chest. I didn’t know why I had even bothered looking at that picture in the first place. I probably could have guessed what it was. I hadn’t needed to see that. Now all I could think of was Ymir a second after the picture was taken, yelling Krista to delete it, swiping madly at her girlfriend and straining her already damaged shoulder as she tried to take her phone away, eventually giving up as the pain became too much to power through, then the two of them calming down and Krista soothing her while she pressed send...

I had to stop myself there. Otherwise I would have made myself sick.

Eventually the phone and its cancerous picture message came back to Reiner. He promptly locked it and slipped it back into his pocket.

“Well, at least we know why she couldn’t come any of the meetings,” Connie said in a desperate attempt to break the silence in the room.

Nobody felt like responding. And then...

“Reiner, is your meeting over yet?”

The entire circle turned around to face the doorway between us and the dining room. The pretty little face framed in soft blonde curls that we’d already seen a thousand times before was peeking in.

“Mindy! I told you to leave them alone!” A boy who looked like a younger, lankier and green-eyed version of Reiner appeared just behind her and grabbed her by the shoulder. He glanced at his brother, and exasperated look on his face. “I swear to god, she’s a glutton for punishment or something.”

“It really isn’t a big deal, Isaac,” Reiner said, a smile dissolving the pallor on his face. “She can come in if she wants.”

Isaac knitted his eyebrows and glanced down at the little girl he was just barely managing to hold back. “Are you sure?”

Mindy, on the other hand, had no need for extra affirmations. She shook Isaac’s hand off and dashed into the room, beelining for the spot on the couch right between her big brother and his even bigger boyfriend. Reiner let out a soft laugh and situated his baby sister between the two of them. “So, do you have anything you want to share with the group, Mindy?”

And that was how the subject of that day’s meeting switched over to how scary and exciting it was to start fourth grade was instead of how close the group was to its first casualty of the year. **  
**

 

* * *

 

Next to nothing happened in the four-day stretch between that meeting and the next. The third meeting of the unofficial season wasn’t too far out of the ordinary either. Krista came back, and that was about the most interesting thing that happened. By then, a lot had changed about her.

The version of Krista Lenz who walked into the third unofficial meeting seemed less... I don’t know, less Krista than she had before. She looked like she’d been getting considerably less sleep than she was supposed to and was a lot quieter than usual. A little listless. Depressed, even. She didn’t say much during the meeting, and only talked to a few people, none of them being me. I figured she had come to the support group for what had earned it its name; she needed support.

Her girlfriend was dying, after all.

The fourth unofficial meeting was another four days later. Mikasa had to train for an upcoming tournament that weekend and wouldn’t be able to show until half an hour into the meeting, meaning that I’d have to figure out a way to get there on my own. Which meant walking, because I didn’t have any senior friends to ask for a ride and I wasn’t about to go asking my dad to do any special favors for me.

I was lucky enough to have gotten stuck walking to the meeting that would be hosted at Armin’s house, which a normal person could have gotten to in about twenty minutes. I, on the other hand, took just under an hour to drag my weak, pitiful, cancer-ridden carcass over the mile between my house and the mid-size ranch house by Shiganshina Elementary where he lived.

I stumbled up the three concrete steps in front of his house and rang the doorbell before toppling over against the wall and gasping for air. I’d nearly hyperventilated twice on my way there. I made a quick decision to ask his grandpa if he could take me home after the meeting that afternoon shortly before I heard someone inside shuffling up to the door.

The door clicked open and a short, slightly overweight man with hair stuck somewhere between pale grey and dirty blonde opened the door. He regarded me with his watery blue eyes and gave me a forced (but still somehow pleasant) smile. “Oh, hello, Eren. You’re a bit early, aren’t you?”

I choked down my panting just long enough to speak out a coherent sentence. “I-I had to walk. I...” and a pause for heavy breathing, “I didn’t know how long it would take.”

“Alright, then,” Grandpa Arlert said. He looked over his shoulder and shouted into the house. “Armin! One of your friends is here!”

“Which one?” a normally-quiet-and-mousy voice shouted back.

“Eren! The one who always has... damn, what’s her name... I can’t remember, but you know, the Chinese girl who’s always with him!”

“You mean Mikasa isn’t here?!” I looked a little ways past the door and saw Armin standing in the doorway at the opposite end, where the midsize living room with its slightly-outdated everything was situated. He spied me and a bright smile lit up his face.

“Oh, that’s her name,” his grandpa said to himself.

“And... um... she’s Japanese, actually,” I quietly added.

Armin scampered out of the living room and appeared at the doorway. “Hey Eren! Where’s Mikasa?”

“Training. She’s got a tournament next weekend. She’s been asking me to go watch her. You want to come?”

“That sounds pretty cool. I guess I-”

“He’d love to go,” his grandpa interjected. He looked pointedly at his grandson.

Armin sighed and grabbed me by the arm. “Come on, everything’s set up in here.” And with that, he pulled me away from his grandpa and into the living room. Once we were out of earshot he collapsed onto the straight-out-of-the-80s couch and groaned, raking his fingers into his hair. “So sorry about that. He’s like that _all the time_.”

If I could pick as many words as I wanted to describe Armin’s grandpa, _pushy_ would definitely be one of them. I couldn’t even be sure how many times Armin had complained to me about his grandpa’s constant and sometimes excessive efforts to get his quiet, awkward grandson out of the house and socially independent. But there was only so much he could do. It wasn’t really anything either of them could help. Grandpa Arlert just happened to have a grandson who was afflicted with social awkwardness and borderline anxiety as well as lymphoma at a young age.

I’ll just go ahead and say this. I probably liked Armin’s grandpa more than Armin did. Most of that was probably because I would have traded families with just about any of my friends. And although Armin’s was ridiculously small (thanks, lymphoma), it was still more of a family than I had. Grandpa Arlert might have been overbearing at times, but he was always there for Armin when he needed him. It was like losing so many people had the exact opposite effect on him than it did on my dad. And that was really saying something. My dad might have lost his wife, but so did Grandpa Arlert. He also happened to have lost his son. And daughter-in-law. And other assorted members of his extended family. The man was only in his late sixties, and yet he’d been dealt just about the same number of emotional losses as someone twenty years older. I’d thought once or twice that maybe he was depressed himself and at constant risk of becoming a shut-in like I had. But then, he had a good gathering of friends in town to go fishing or play bingo with or whatever it is that old people do with each other. Maybe that was what helped him most to deal with what life had done to him. It certainly explained why he pushed Armin to be social as much as he did.

I dropped down onto the couch next to Armin. “Today was scheduled for four, right?”

He straightened up and wriggled around to face me. “Yeah. Did your phone die on the way here?”

“I forgot to charge it last night,” I said shamefully, tugging my shut-down cell out of my pocket to show him. “I checked the time a little while after I left and saw that I had only twenty percent battery.”

“And you’re normally so prepared,” Armin said with a laugh. He leaned over to pick a tortilla chip from one of the bowls on the coffee table. “The others probably won’t be here for another ten minutes or so, just so you know.”

“So,” I mused, folding my legs up on the couch.

“So,” Armin echoed. He took a bite off the edge of his tortilla chip. “You never told me Mikasa is Chinese.”

“Well, excuse your politically incorrect grandpa.”

“He calls pretty much any Asian person he sees Chinese. It’s either that or Oriental. I think it’s just an old people thing.”

A few minutes less than ten later, the doorbell rang again. Armin and I raced down the main hallway to see who it was. It turned out to be Hanji, with Mrs. Springer’s car pulling up to the curb behind her. People started piling in then, everyone cramming into the living room, which suddenly felt inexplicably smaller. A quick once-over of the crowd we’d gathered told me that, once again, Ymir had failed to show up. So had Krista. And so had...

I didn’t even know why I still bothered looking for Levi. It was obvious he had no intention of coming back.

The meeting started off in a pretty regular fashion. Hanji had forgotten her clipboard, which spared everyone else from sitting through an hour of repetitive clicking. Sasha attacked the chips that Armin had put out, people complained about how much they hated school already and how we were only halfway through September and they were supposed to put up with this until next June, Marco put in a comment about a short hospital visit he’d had a few days before for some pain he’d been having somewhere in his cancer-ridden body (thanks, late diagnosis), Jean talked about how he’d come in to visit his best friend every day after school...

And the doorbell rang.

Armin shot up from his spot next to me, looking like he’d just been caught sleeping in the middle of class. “I’ve got it!” he shouted out to no one in particular. He scampered out of the living room with no further explanation.

The group stared after him for a second, then started talking again as if nothing had happened. I wasn’t listening to them, though. I was far more interested in the faint voices echoing in from the other end of the hallway.

And the fact that I thought I recognized one of them.

“Hey. Sorry I’m late, Coconut. Classes were a bitch and I had to talk to my professor in the last one.”

“It’s okay. It’s fine, really.” Armin’s reassurance was quick and sincere, as if he were the one who needed to be apologizing. “Come on in. Everybody’s in the living room.”

A second later, Armin scooted back into the room and plunked into the spot next to me where he’d been situated for almost the entire meeting. Then someone walked in behind him. Someone who I hadn’t seen in nearly a month and was sure (and almost hoping) that I would never see again.

“Nobody panic. I’m here,” Levi said as he stepped into the room and took his place on the loveseat next to Hanji.

For a second, the entire world seemed to slow down. I didn’t know what to do. A part of me wanted to scream. It wanted me to stand up and shout at him, “You can’t be here! You’re not supposed to care about us, remember?!” It made me wish I could close my eyes, open them again and find myself waking up in bed, the entire scenario nothing but a dream. But something else in me was urging my to throw myself across the room and hug him like a soldier returning from war. It made me want to hold him close and cry and tell him over and over again how much I’d missed him.

Obviously, I couldn’t bring myself to listen to either of those parts. I just stuck to the one that I usually did.

I stayed where I was and stared at him.

Levi didn’t even seem to notice. He just relaxed into his spot next to Hanji and listened indifferently as everyone in the room directed all of their attention towards him.

“Levi! Where have you been this whole time?!”

“It’s been ages, man!”

“Did you forget about us or something?!”

“What have you been doing? Tell us! We haven’t seen you in so long!”

Hanji covered her mouth with one hand and stifled a giggle. Levi glanced sideways at her, then turned back to the support-group-turned-question-riot. “Okay, okay. Slow down, guys. One at a time.”

Everyone backed off and stopped asking questions the moment the words were out of his mouth. Except for me, since I hadn’t even been on him in the first place. And Annie, since, you know, she couldn’t ask things at all. I always found it a little astonishing, how easily Levi could command people.

Hanji looked over at him. “So?”

“I’ve been pretty much drowning in work from my classes at Sina for the past few weeks,” he said matter-of-factly. “So I’ve been balancing that with my hours at Trost on the weekends, and it basically left me with barely enough time to sleep. So... yeah. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to see you guys in a while. But that’s just the way it’s been.” He shrugged and looked around at the support group. They’d all fixated on him as if they were a bunch of seals and Levi was holding a bucket of fresh herring.

Reiner was the first to speak up. “Have you heard about what happened to Ymir?”

_Well, someone certainly doesn’t like beating around the bush._

“Yeah,” Levi said solemnly. “Hanji told me everything.”

The room was quiet for a second. It seemed that the group’s intention for that meeting had magically turned to telling Levi all the gory details about Ymir and her not-so-sudden relapse. Now that that plan had (thankfully) been shot down, everyone was stuck.

“So,” Marco prompted. “Um... You’ve started your second year of pre-med, right?”

“I have,” Levi confirmed with a slight nod.

“How’s that going for you?”

“I’m four weeks in and it’s stressful as fuck.”

Marco turned and looked pointedly at Connie. “And you were complaining earlier about what, again?”

That day’s meeting turned into a competition for the Most Stressful Life in the Support Group award. I’d stayed out of it, since I had literally nothing in my life to be stressed about. Well, other than the whole leukemia thing. But what was having a lifelong terminal disease compared to having to write two term papers on different subjects in the same span of two weeks?

Anyway, Levi won that contest so easily it was kind of depressing.

Nobody wanted to stick to the one-hour timeframe that the meetings always had to adhere to anymore. Mikasa came in so late that the scheduled hour of meeting time was almost over. Nobody cared. The group was just happy that she was able to make it at all. When the clock struck five, everyone ignored it and went straight on talking. I tried to pitch in, but I kept finding myself holding back. I spent most of the time watching Levi instead. He wasn’t saying much, either. He had never exactly been talkative at meetings. But he still said more than I did. Mainly because I was afraid that if I so much as opened my mouth something regrettably stupid would come out.

_Levi, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for an entire month and I have missed you so much but I also was hoping I would never see your face again because I have this massive fucking crush on you and it’s so bad it kind of makes me want to scream. And you see, I kind of had a heart attack when I saw you walk in, because I really like you but I also know you will never like me back because I am a fucking pathetic excuse for a human being and I just thought you should know. You’re okay, with that, right?_

Yeah. That would go over just fucking great. **  
**

The meeting didn’t end until Levi mentioned something about an essay he had to finish and Hanji realized that she hadn’t even started writing the exact same one. Things wrapped up pretty quickly after that.

The support group cleared out of Armin’s house, save for Sasha, who stayed behind for a minute to clean up whatever was left in the chip bowls. Hanji dashed to her car and peeled out of the driveway, Reiner and Bertolt hung around leaning up against the Neon, sucking each others’ faces and whispering sweet Always to each other while they waited for Annie to finish up talking (texting) to Armin, Mikasa was off somewhere and probably making out with Jean, and just about everyone else was contacting their ride home. That left me with nothing else to do but sit on Armin’s front steps and watch.

It didn’t take long for Levi to join me.

“Hey, brat.”

I had been almost sure that those would be the first words he’d say to me if I ever saw him again.

I looked over at him, and suddenly it was as if the people milling around in the driveway disappeared. It was just me and him. A smile broke out on my face and I felt a blush come crawling up my spine and set fire to my face.

“Hi, Levi,” I said weakly.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” he said. He came closer and sat down next to me.

“Yeah, it has,” I replied. I tried to will the redness on my face to calm down. Talking to him would be pretty difficult if I turned into a strawberry every time I tried. The two of us stayed quiet for a while, staring out at the rest of the support group scattered in front of Armin’s house. My heart was pulsing wildly. I told it to shut up and glanced over at Levi. He seemed as calm and collected as ever. I took a deep breath and finally let out the words that had been trapped in my head ever since I saw him walk in. “I thought you weren’t going to be staying with us.”

“You did?” Levi glanced coolly over at me, his face still looking impassive and remotely bored. “Why would you think that?”

I shrugged. “Just some things some of the other people in the group said to me. And that you weren’t at the first three off-season meetings. But I guess those sources aren’t really all that reliable.”

“No, they’re not,” Levi agreed, keeping his gaze vacantly locked on the house across the street. “Besides, people can change their minds. Even if I hadn’t wanted to stick with the group at first, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to later.”

A drop of disappointment fell into my thoughts. “So... you didn’t want to before?”

“What? No. That’s not what I meant at all,” Levi said insistently. “I just didn’t have the time. I’m in accelerated pre-med program to catch up with what I missed while I was getting my nursing license, and that’s almost thirty hours of class time a week, plus the fuckton of homework I have to do on my own time. And I’m still working hours at Trost on the weekends.”

“Wow, I...” I mused, a bewildered look on my face. “I didn’t know you were so busy.”

Levi scoffed. “Busy doesn’t even cut it. My schedule is so fucking packed I’m surprised I even find time to eat and sleep anymore.” He looked over his shoulder and shot me a mischievous smirk. “But I knew I’d eventually find a place to squeeze you idiots in.”

I felt that stupid smile creeping onto my face again. “So... You actually did want to come to all those meetings you missed?”

“Would it shut you up if I said I did?”

Okay, my smile was officially dead now. “It wouldn’t surprise me all that much if you didn’t.”

Levi sighed and stared back out into the distance. “Well, I did. Because believe it or not, brat, I actually sort of think of you guys as my friends.”

“But... don’t you have other friends?” I asked shyly. “Like, from your classes, or maybe people you work with at Trost-”

“If it hasn’t occurred to you yet, I’m not exactly the most sociable person on the face of the earth,” Levi said flatly, cutting my words short.

“Oh,” was all I could say in response.

The two of us stayed there for the longest time. Neither of us said a word. We just stared out across Armin’s front yard and watched as people’s cars started to appear at the end of the street. Then they were pulling into the driveway, and people were saying to say their goodbyes.

“I guess I should probably get going.”

I started at the sound of Levi’s voice and spun around to face him. “Huh?”

“Hanji’s not the only one who has a ten-page paper to write,” he continued. “I’m almost finished with it, but it’s still due in two days.” He stood up from his place on the steps and stretched his arms over his head. I tried not to imagine what they’d look like without his flannel to cover them up, his muscles rippling under his skin... Obviously, I failed at avoiding the imagery there.

“Well... I’ll see you next time, I guess,” I said. I stood up, one step below Levi. When he put his arms back down, we were seeing each other almost eye to eye. It was weird. I was so used to looking at him on an angle.

“Whenever that happens to be,” Levi added, a semblance of amusement on his face.

I smiled, a quiet laugh slipping out of me. “See you whenever, then.”

A transient smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. “See you whenever.”

And then Levi came down from the steps, went over to his car, and climbed in. I watched him as he started it up and maneuvered it around to pull out of Armin’s driveway. He caught me staring for a second and gave me a death stare through the passenger side window. I plastered a guilty smile onto my face and gave him a sarcastic little wave in return.

“Hey, Eren. Mrs. Bodt is a few minutes away, and Marco said that she can give us a ride home if...”

I shuddered and spun around as soon as my ears started to register words. Mikasa was standing behind me, the front door swinging shut behind her. Jean was close behind, the remains of a bag of tortilla chips under one arm. I felt the color drain from my face and whirled back around just in time to see Levi’s bright green Soul pulling out of the driveway and disappearing down the street. I sighed and turned around as slowly as I could, knowing that as soon as I did a shiteating grin would have wound its way onto Mikasa’s face.

And there it was.

“What was that about?” she asked deviously.

“What?”

“That little parade girl wave,” she clarified. She flicked her hand around in the air in an epileptic-fish version of what I’d just done. “You giving nurseman the queen’s fondest regards or something?”

I rolled my eyes at her and turned away to get off the stairs. “You’re kind of a bitch sometimes, you know that?”

“It takes one to know one, Eren.”

“You should know. You’re dating one.”

“Hey, I heard that!” Jean said defensively.

“I know. You were supposed to.”

We got a ride home from Marco’s mom that day. If there was anything positive that came out of my sister playing girlfriend for the douchebag of the year, it was that I got to sit in close proximity to his best friend, who happened to be the nicest best friend on the planet. Marco also happened to have one of the nicest parents on the planet.

Julia Bodt was the genuinely sweetest, non-Stepford mom that I had ever met. She had been the one to suggest taking us home in the first place, since Marco had told her about the way I had nearly died walking there earlier that afternoon. She was pretty involved in the conversation we all had on the way back to my house, while somehow avoiding running into the honey-how-was-your-first-day-of-kindergarten cliché that I have known some parents to do. And by we, I mean me and Marco, since Jean and Mikasa were pretty much in their own little lovey-dovey world in the backseat. It was all I could do not to gag all the way through the ride back. I’d never seen my sister act like that before, and now that she was, it was absolutely sickening.

Once Julia dropped us back in our driveway, we both headed inside to start “cooking” our “dinner” for that night. Mikasa tried repeatedly to ask me about what had happened with Levi right before she came outside. But, of course, I wasn’t about to tell her anything.

After all, it was still just a crush. It would wear off eventually.

Right?

 

* * *

 

The hiatus between the fourth and fifth meetings was longer than any of the others before, save for the gap between the last official and first un. Nine days. Nine days I had to stay home, sit around and wait. It wasn’t as if I was doing nothing in all that time. Five days out of it were dedicated to homeschooling, and a good percentage of the hours that weren’t got taken up by online class work. But it still wasn’t enough to stop me from overthinking again. Overthinking had sort of become my new addiction over the past few weeks.

And of course, when I overthought, it was almost always about Levi. Levi and his perfect face. Levi and his razor-sharp attitude. Levi and his sarcasm, his apathy, his everything about him that normal people were supposed to hate but for some strange, twisted reason I couldn’t get enough of. Levi and those perverted dreams I had about him at least twice a week and usually more. Although I really would rather have forgotten about that last bit.

“Eren! Eren, get up!”

My eyes flew open and I sat bolt upright in bed, my covers sliding off of me and pooling around my legs. Well, except for the edge of my sheet that got stuck on my morning wood. Again.

“Eren!”

I reached a hand up and raked my fingers through my hair, letting a long, heavy sigh rush out of my lungs. That was Mikasa. What was she yelling at me about?

What day was it?

As if to answer my question, my bedroom door swung open and Mikasa leaned in. “You’re still in bed? It’s almost noon. The meeting is in an hour!”

Saturday. So that’s what day it was.

Fifth unofficial meeting. At the library in Shiganshina. One in the afternoon.

I scrambled to pull my blankets up and cover up my raging boner. “Holy crap. That’s what we’re doing today?”

Mikasa rolled her eyes. “Yes. Now get your leukemic ass dressed and meet me downstairs. It’s gonna be a long walk there.”

She shut the door again and I sat still, listening as her footsteps receded down the hallway. I dropped my gaze back into my lap and groaned. I lifted the blankets up and peered underneath. My pants looked like I had tried to sneak a granola bar into bed with me and I’d forgotten it was there. I kicked my covers off and stood up, trying to work the blood that had built up in my dick into some other part of my body. I forced myself to think of the grossest things I possibly could as I wandered around in my room and tried to dig up something decent to wear, since I now knew there was a possibility that I might have been seeing Levi again that day.

_Wait, no. Don’t think of Levi. Think of gross things. Um... Your fifth grade math teacher? No, grosser. Think of Reiner’s back skin. No, that’s the wrong kind of gross... Susan Boyle. In a miniskirt. With no underwear. And a crop top._

By the time I finally calmed my crotch down, I had already gotten dressed in the old Star Wars shirt and slouchy black jeans that I had picked for the day. I left my room and headed to the bathroom down the hall to fix my hair into something that didn’t look like a cat had been playing with it all night.

Or like Levi had actually been digging his fingers into it while I sucked him off.

Like I said. The dreams were happening a lot more often than I would have liked to admit.

I went downstairs as soon as I looked presentable. Mikasa was waiting for me at the kitchen table, her messenger bag already slung over her shoulder and ready to walk out of the house at a moment’s notice. I grabbed a granola bar (that I hadn’t been hiding in my pants all night) to eat on the way there, since I knew that we had a long walk ahead of us. Leukemia legs aren’t very good for fast travel on foot.

“Hey, Eren, were you okay last night?” Mikasa asked once we were outside.

I glanced over at her, my legs still carrying me at a relatively normal pace. “Yeah. I was fine. Why are you asking?”

She shrugged and stared down at the sidewalk ahead of us. “I don’t know. I was up late last night, and I heard weird noises coming from your room. Then you slept in so much today. I thought maybe you had a nightmare and couldn’t sleep or something.”

A searing heat surged up in my face that had nothing to do with the bright afternoon sun beating down on us. “N-no, of course not. I was fine last night. Totally okay.”

“Are you sure?” Mikasa persisted, looking back up at me. “You went to bed at, like, eleven last night. You can’t honestly tell me you slept for all thirteen hours.”

Well, she was right about one thing. I’d been streaming Netflix until around one. But I had gone to sleep once I’d finished up the fifth season of Supernatural. And then... Well, the state of my pants when I had woken up did enough to explain what had happened after that.

“What can I say?” I said, giving her a small smile and noncommittal shrug. “Sleep fights cancer.”

Mikasa rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll believe you. But if it happens again, I won’t. Got it?”

“Roger that, chief,” I replied, laughter behind the words.

We didn’t talk about much else on the rest of the way to the library. Hanji, Jean and Marco had were already there by the time we arrived. I hung around Hell-PN and freckled Jesus while Seabiscuit swept my sister off to some distant corner of the room to make out with her or whatever else it was they did together. Reiner showed up with Annie not too much later, and Armin had hitched a ride with the two of them. Bertolt had a class at Rose Community that day since, as Armin had told me, they had no consideration for weekends there and hadn’t been able to show. But Connie and Sasha had. And Levi hadn’t. Which, in all honesty, was kind of a relief.

We had already gotten into the circle and started talking by the time Krista showed up.

At first, I had hardly even recognized her. I’d thought it was just another small, blonde stranger who happened to wander into the room while we were in the middle of a session. Then I heard Reiner say, “Oh. Hi, Krista. Didn’t think we’d be seeing you today.”

I stared, my mouth falling slightly open as she limped over to the circle and dropped down onto a beanbag that nobody had claimed yet. She looked so different. I’d hardly been able to tell it was her at first. The Disney princess that I had met in June was gone. In her place was a tired, broken-down wisp of a girl who just happened to have the same name. Krista was tired. I could see it in the dark insomnia shadows under her eyes and the way her normally perfect posture slumped over when she sat down. Her clear blue eyes stared straight ahead, blank and glassy like a china doll’s. Her hair had been left messy and unstyled, and she hadn’t bothered to put any makeup on before going to the meeting that day. The state of disorder didn’t make her look any less pretty. But that was beside the point.

Krista blinked, as if she was surprised that Reiner had even noticed her presence. “H-hi, Reiner.”

Something was wrong. I knew that much. I couldn’t be sure what, and I wasn’t about to go dragging it out of her anytime soon. So I just stuck to my usual, sitting and staring.

Passive gawking, however, was never the course that Reiner took. “Is something wrong?” he asked straightforwardly, concern softening up his narrow brown eyes.

“Y-yes, but...” Krista stammered, as if speaking were suddenly the hardest thing for her to do. “Can it wait until later?”

“Um... Yes. Of course,” Reiner replied. He backed away from her a few inches and turned his attention back to the rest of us.

No one tried to push her any more after that. The group just sat in their circle and talked, trying to act as if everything was normal and there wasn’t a deadened version of one of our members sitting right there with us. The hour slowly passed by. Then, about five minutes from the meeting’s scheduled end, Krista finally spoke up again.

“I... um, there’s something I need to tell everyone.”

The entire group turned their attention towards her. Krista hardly seemed to notice. She just reached into the pocket of her cardigan and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. I watched as she unfolded it carefully in her hands. Apparently this something she had to tell us was so important she’d had to write a script for it.

Krista had to stop and take a deep breath before she could keep going. “I have some bad news,” she said in a voice so soft and broken that I could barely hear it.

Everything inside me turned into a solid block of ice. I knew it. She hadn’t even said a word yet, and I already knew what was coming.

Krista looked down at her paper and took another breath before continuing. “As all of you know, Ymir’s symptoms had a relapse just a little less than a month ago. She hadn’t been doing so well before that, either, since she’d never gone into a real remission. But... but she had always pulled through,” she said. “She could only do that for so long, though. Things had been getting worse for a while, and her cancer had always been so aggressive. So when she started relapsing again, she was sent in to her doctor for a few tests, and...”

Krista broke off. Her voice was struggling to remain steady. She was having a hard time even reading from the paper now. “When the results came back in... they had found new colonies in her kidneys. And... they were starting to fail... So she was put on a transplant list... and... and then all we could do was wait.”

Krista stopped again, one hand clutching tightly at the paper and the other coming up to push a strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes were tearing up, and I could see her hands starting to shake. But she still forced herself to continue. “Ymir fought as hard as she could for seventeen days,” she read on. “And... on the morning September nineteenth, Ymir lost her battle with her rhabdomyosarcomas. She... passed away peacefully. In... in her sleep.”

Krista’s words were replaced by the soft noise of printer paper crumpling between white, shaking fingers and the choked, stifled whimper of someone who was suffocating themselves trying to fight back tears. She dropped the paper ball that used to be her speech on the floor and brought both hands up to cover her mouth as she failed to hold back another agonized squeak. The tears that had been welling up in her eyes finally started to spill over and run down her cheeks. She tried to sit up for a while longer, but it didn’t take long for her trembling body to give out and collapse over her knees.

Reiner was on her in a second. He all but teleported to the place next to where she was sitting and wrapped his huge arms around her small, shuddering frame. Krista did the same to him, burying her face into his chest and clinging to him for dear life as the sobbing grew stronger.

“I’m so sorry,” he said softly as he held her close and petted her hair with one huge hand. “I’m so, so sorry.”

They were the only ones in the room who were even moving anymore. Everyone else seemed to have stopped functioning. They had all turned into statues, their wide, shocked-filled eyes still stuck to Krista as she broke down and sobbed into the front of Reiner’s shirt. No one could find the words to speak. Jean turned to look at Marco for a second. I saw the glassiness in his eyes for just a second before his best friend got up and moved to join the sympathy party on the loveseat. I heard a small, stifled gasp come from the chair next to mine. I turned to see Hanji staring at the ground, her face pale and her fingers pressed to her lips.

“Oh, god...” she whispered. Then she got up and moved towards Krista as well.

The meeting ended then. There was nothing more that anyone could say. Krista had unraveled anything that any of us could have complained about or discussed the minute she pulled that sheet of paper out of her pocket. And now it was on the floor. And the entire support group knew what had happened to Ymir.

Whoever hadn’t gone to the couch to comfort Krista was stuck in their seat and staring at her with the blank, disbelieving look on their face that people always seem to get when they receive news they don’t want to hear. Even Annie.

Even me.

And this was what I had known would happen ever since I walked into conference room 4A on that first day in June.

Levi had already warned me that this happens every year. He’d told me that no one could predict the future. But we all knew that one of us was going to go terminal sooner or later. The only thing that no one was able to guess was who. And now they had their answer.

Ymir was dead.

It was Schroedinger’s Support Group, and the vial had finally broken.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there it is.  
> I did it.  
> It was going to happen eventually, and there. It just did.  
> Now feel free to shitpost and leave all the angry reviews you want.  
> It's only going to get worse from here on out.  
> Thanks for reading.  
> See you next chapter.


	13. Staying Inside, Coming Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. It's been a while.  
> I'm sorry about the last author's note I left. Well, I've managed to suppress that shitstorm for now, and I've worked up the confidence to post another chapter. I should probably take the advice my commentors gave me and stop saying "it's only going to get worse." Pretty obvious that's a turn-off to a lot of readers.  
> This chapter is the shortest that I've posted in a while, so I don't have much to say. However, the school year is finished for me and I can (hopefully) spend more time on my writing now, both fanfictitious and original work. I've left the original stuff abandoned for a pretty long time, so I think it's about time that I picked it back up again.  
> This chapter was beta'd by my two fandom friends frozenheart23 and volatileSoloiste. They also beta'd the last few chapters for me. I've been meaning to credit them for a while, but for some reason I kept forgetting. Just wanted to say thanks for reading my shit. :3  
> Good news. I finally restarted my author blog. Mind you, it's still under construction, so there might not be very much to look at for at least another week or two. I've decided to make pages for my stories (The October Story finally got some fan art. Yay!). The blog's new name is "the-angstiest-author." That way I can continually change my username and it'll work, so long as it has "angst" somewhere in it. Hooray for indecisiveness.  
> I'm still following the tags "fic: tmiu" and "fic: the monsters inside us" if anyone even cares.  
> That's enough for now.  
> Story time.

 

 

I didn’t speak at all on the way home. Mikasa didn’t push me to. Neither of us said a word in the entire thirty-four minutes it took for us to get back to our house. We both noticed that I was walking even slower than usual. I didn’t even try to stop myself from thinking about why. Then when we got home, I went up to my room, shut the door, and screamed into a pillow until I passed out from exhaustion.

I had been trying so hard not to think about it lately. I’d been pushing the thought away all summer. The YCSG had been to blame for that. I wouldn’t deny that much. And for a long time, I hated them for it. For giving me hope. For wrapping me up in friendships I didn’t need. For making me think that I had a chance. I guess when you finally have a little shred of happiness in your life, it’s suddenly that much harder to think about losing it.

At that meeting, I remembered.

It had been so long since I had felt like the doomed, worthless lump of mutated cells that I knew, deep down, that I really was. I had almost forgotten. When I was with the support group... when I was with my _friends_... it had all felt almost normal. Like maybe I knew them from school instead of group therapy. We never acted like anything was wrong. And over time, maybe I’d subconsciously convinced myself that that was really the case.

But it wasn’t. And it had taken the extremest of measures to remind me.

I’d met all of those people that I had decided to call my friends because I had cancer. And my cancer was killing me. It was happening slowly, but it was still happening. Maybe Mikasa, and my dad, and even Dr. Erwin didn’t want me to believe it, but it was. Every time I relapsed I broke down a little more. And the line had to end somewhere. My cancer could drag itself out for years if it wanted to. And I knew that someday it would hit me so hard that I wouldn’t be able to bounce back.

They could tell me as many times as they wanted that I was getting better, but I wasn’t.

I was going to die. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but I would, and infinitely sooner than someone who was actually healthy.

That night, I fell asleep before my dad came home. I almost had another dream about Levi, but something woke me up and the dream was ripped away from me the moment I saw his face in my sleep. Then, as soon as my eyes were open, I knew I wouldn’t be going back for the rest of the night.

Levi. He had been the first. Everything else had happened because of him.

I had no reason to like him the way I did, but at the same time, I had every reason. If I had any sense left in my head, I would have hated him for what he’d dragged me into. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t think of Levi that way. I felt nothing but... I didn’t even know what it was anymore. I wanted him. I wanted his attitude, his moodiness, his busy schedule, his perfect body, the little glimpses of emotion he showed me whenever he let his guard down, the way he secretly cared when he really wanted to and everything else that came with it. But I could never have him. Not as long as things were like this. Not as long as I was sick. I was nothing but a chore to him. Just something he had to take care of. But my feelings still wouldn’t change, no matter how many times I forced myself to see the truth.

 _It doesn’t matter_ , I told myself as I lay there, _my face streaked with tears that had been falling for no reason while I slept. It’s just a crush. Just a stupid crush. It’ll be over before you know it. He’ll never like you back. Then when you’re dead, he’ll move on. It won’t matter how you felt now. No one is going to remember. No one is going to care. Especially not him._

For some reason, knowing that hurt more than anything else.

 

* * *

 

Just like it had for the past four years, the world kept on turning without me. Monday rolled around, the school week started, Mikasa was gone for seven hours a day and I still hadn’t set foot outside of the house since Saturday. My tutor came in four times that week, and I straggled through more lessons and online class work when he didn’t. Whatever time I had left was dedicated to drowning my feelings in the fictional struggles of whatever TV show characters Netflix had to offer me. Then, before I knew it, Friday had passed. Mikasa was home for the weekend. I’d spent a whole six days without once leaving the house.

On Saturday morning, I woke up before her for once in my life. I had completely lost track of my sleeping schedule, deciding to just drift off whenever I felt like it. This had led to an extraordinary number of online assignments finished and turned in sometime around 3 AM. I must have somehow gone full circle and fallen back into a somewhat normal sleeping pattern, because while I was sitting in the kitchen and picking indifferently at a bowl of Chex, Mikasa walked in wearing a pair of gym shorts and a crumpled tee shirt.

I glanced up from the breakfast that I was making a half-assed attempt to eat. Mikasa seemed like she was barely even paying attention to what was in front of her. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, raked back her messy, tangled hair and pulled the door of the fridge open. She mechanically took out a bottle of V8 juice, poured herself a glass and hip-checked the door shut. Mikasa didn’t notice me sitting at the table and watching her until she put her glass down directly across from me.

She blinked, and her eyes appeared to refocus and widen a little, but she dropped back into her half-asleep stupor a second later. Neither of us said anything for an entire five minutes while we sat there. And when someone finally did, of course it was her.

“‘Morning. Didn’t think I’d see you down here so early.”

“What constitutes early?” I tossed back, stabbing at the soggy remains of my cereal with the end of my spoon.

Mikasa shrugged. “I dunno. Earlier than me.”

“What time is it?” I asked.

“It’s...” She peered over my shoulder and glanced at the clock on the microwave behind me. “About eight thirty. How long have you been up?”

“No idea. A few hours, maybe,” I replied. I dropped my spoon back into my bowl and gave up on trying to eat whatever was left. I really wasn’t feeling it anymore.

“You really need to get your sleeping pattern back under control, Eren,” Mikasa remarked, picking up her glass and draining whatever was left. “I woke up at like, 2 in the morning a few days ago, and I heard you typing in your room. What the hell were you doing up that late?”

“Online school stuff,” I said. “And I was up a lot later than that.”

“How late?”

“You think I know? I wasn’t looking at the clock. I think I saw the sun come up, though.”

Mikasa sighed and stared at her empty glass. “Sometimes I just really don’t know what to do with you.”

The two of us went back to hanging around in silence as Mikasa got up again and fixed herself a piece of toast. I sat at the table, doing what I did best (something in between nothing and overthinking, if you haven’t gotten the gist at this point). My sister didn’t sit back down at the table, choosing instead to perch herself on the counter and eat her toast there. She kept looking back at me every few seconds, then taking her eyes away whenever I noticed. I wondered why for a little while. But I figured the question wasn’t worth asking.

It wasn’t until the toast was gone that she finally asked. “Are you okay, Eren?”

Her voice had come up so suddenly, but I didn’t care enough to be startled. I looked up at her from the table. “I think so. Why do you ask?”

It was a lie. I should have known that Mikasa wouldn’t fall for it.

“Because there are a shitload of warning signs that you’ve been displaying lately. That’s why,” she said, looking me dead in the eyes.

“Warning signs?” I echoed, raising my eyebrows.

“Yeah. A lot of them.”

“Like what?”

“You haven’t been sleeping normally, first of all. You haven’t left the house in a week. You haven’t been eating lately, either.”

“Um, Mikasa?” I interjected, gesturing emphatically at the bowl of Chex that I had been working my way through shortly before she had walked in.

“You got halfway through it and gave up. That’s not eating, Eren. That’s a shitty attempt at covering up the fact that you’re not.”

“But that’s this morning,” I said indignantly. “What about the rest-”

“Eren, I am literally the only person who watches you eat, ever. And what you’ve been doing over the past week hasn’t been normal.”

My argument fell flat and I shut my mouth. I couldn’t compete with her. So I resorted to sighing heavily and surrendering. “What were the warning signs for?”

“A lot of things,” she explained. “Depression, mostly. But-”

“Hold on. Depression?”

Mikasa paused in the middle of her explanation and fixed her gaze pointedly on me. “Yeah. I looked it up. Some people say that depression can be a side effect of cancer.”

“Depression isn’t a side effect of cancer,” I said. “It’s a side effect of dying.”

The kitchen went silent for a second. Mikasa stared at me, a look of sleep-stifled distress on her face, like she was trying to be shocked but it was too early in the morning for the feeling to register correctly.

“You’re not dying, Eren.”

“Yes, I am,” I replied, meeting her level gaze with mine. “That’s sort of what happens to people with cancer.”

“It doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to you.”

“Yes, it does. It might not be happening right now. But it is happening. There’s no way around it.”

Mikasa stared at me for a while, before sighing and dropping her eyes to the floor. “We all have to die sometime. So if that’s how you really want to see it, fine. You’re dying. But so am I. And so is Dad, and Armin, and everyone else on the planet. It doesn’t just happen to people with cancer. It happens to everyone.”

“That’s not what I mean by dying, Mikasa,” I shot back, anger seeping into my words. “I don’t mean living out your life and wasting away while you get old. I-”

“I know what you mean, Eren!” Mikasa snapped. I shuddered in my seat. She froze up, as if she hadn’t realized she’d started shouting all of a sudden. I blinked and stared at her, my eyes wide, and she stared back, looking just as surprised as I was. “I know what you mean,” she repeated, her voice soft again. “And you’re not dying, Eren. Not yet.”

“I will be someday,” I said listlessly.

“Maybe. But not today.”

The room was quiet again after that.

Mikasa dropped her plate into the dishwasher and left after she figured out that I didn’t want to talk anymore. I went back up to my room, and three hours later I heard the front door swing open and slam shut. Mikasa had left to go meet some of her friends at the park down the block from the library. I knew that much. She’d never told me when she would be back. But I didn’t care. She could be gone until tomorrow and it still wouldn’t matter. For now I just wanted to curl up in my room and be as alone as I could possibly get.

That was exactly what I did. Within minutes, I was bundled up in my comforter with my laptop open in front of me, my shades pulled down and my headphones over my ears. Halfway through my third consecutive episode of Sherlock, my phone buzzed next to me on the mattress. I snatched it up and glanced at the screen. It was a text from Armin.

**Arminnie Mouse: eren i am SOOOO BORED. don’t want to wait until the next meeting. you want to come over?**

I didn’t bother answering. ****

I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. I just wanted to not live my own life for a while. But I couldn’t do that. So the closest thing that I could find was losing myself in someone else’s.

I didn’t even hear the front door swinging shut when Mikasa came back home.

“Eren?”

I blinked slowly, my bleary eyes unable to focus on anything but the screen in front of me. Somewhere outside the realm of my headphones, someone was calling my name. I wondered who. But that still wasn’t enough to make me feel like taking them off.

My bedroom door swung open and light flooded in from the hallway outside.

“Eren, what the hell?!”

A small, startled noise broke out of my throat and I scrambled around in my comforter nest, trying to shield my burning eyes from the sudden burst of sunlight. “Fuck. FUCK. Agh, for the love of-”

“Jesus, Eren. I can’t believe you’re actually... fucking all over again...”

Finally I reached up and slid my headphones off of my ears. Mikasa’s voice rang clear through my room.

“Christ, it’s like a fucking bat cave in here,” she grumbled as she strode into the room and yanked on the cords of my shades. They snapped into their folded positions and the light in my room brightened to the same intensity as the hallway. I squinted my eyes and glanced up to see the formerly blue-gray sky painted with a warm, orange glow.

The sun was setting.

I turned back to Mikasa, a rock settling in the pit of my stomach. “Mikasa...”

“No.” Mikasa was standing in front of my bed, one hand perched on her hip and the other held up to stop the stream of lies that was about to come spilling out of my mouth. “No. Save it. I’m sick of hearing all your “I’m fine” bullshit, because you are obviously not.”

“Mikasa, seriously, I-” I opened my mouth to protest, but she cut me off again.

“There is something wrong. And don’t you fucking dare tell me that there isn’t.” She sat down on the end of my bed and pushed my laptop into the corner. I stared longingly at it for a second before my eyes were dragged back to hers. For what could have been either thirty seconds of thirty minutes, neither of us said a single word.

“You gonna say something yet?” she demanded in probably the gentlest way I would ever hear. If there even is a gentle way to demand things, that was what she did when she asked me.

I held her gaze, my face stuck like a deer in the headlights. “What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing that I want you to say.” I watched the charcoal in her eyes soften into ash. “I just want to know what’s been making you act like this.”

“Nothing’s been making me act like this,” I said, more to convince myself than her. “This is just how I am. It’s how I’ve been for pretty much forever. I really think that you would have been used to it by now.”

“You weren’t like this during the summer,” she pointed out.

“Then that was an anomaly.”

“The entire summer was an anomaly?”

“Yes. And now things are back to normal.” I pulled my comforter tighter around my shoulders as if it could protect me from how much she cared. “So can we drop this? Can you just leave me alone now?”

“No,” Mikasa insisted. “I don’t care what you say, Eren. I’m not leaving this room until you tell me what’s wrong.”

I ripped my gaze away from hers and dropped it into the sheets. “It’s nothing.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Fine. But it’s not important.”

“Eren, if it’s making you act like this, then obviously-”

“Like what?” I burst out before she could finish. “Mikasa, how is this making me act that it’s suddenly become such a big fucking concern to you?”

And then everything turned into a replay of that morning. Staring at each other, no one able to say anything and nothing going on. Just a lot of tension and anger hanging in the still, quiet air.

“Is it because of Ymir?” Mikasa asked, too soon and yet not soon enough.

I nodded. I didn’t think that I could make myself say the words out loud.

“Are you upset because she died?”

I nodded again.

“Do you miss her?”

I shook my head this time. That wasn’t even close to the truth.

“Yeah, you weren’t really all that friendly, were you?”

Another head shake.

“But it’s still because of her?”

Another nod.

“So what is it?”

I stared at her, still feeling as if I were gazing down the barrel of a loaded gun.

“Eren?”

I lowered my gaze again and took a slow, deep breath. “It’s just... what happened to her... it made me think about it again.”

I didn’t even have to explain what _it_ was for Mikasa to understand. “Is that why you said all of that stuff to me this morning?”

I nodded again. ****

“You didn’t really mean it, did you?”

I sighed and looked back up at her, clutching my comforter and wrapping myself as tightly as I could. Mikasa sighed in defeat. She leaned forward on her knees, wound her arms around me and hugged me close.

“You’re not dying, Eren,” she said. “You were fine all summer. And you’re going to be fine for as long as we can keep you that way. Got it?”

I didn’t know why she even bothered saying anything. We both knew that I wouldn’t believe her. But I nodded anyway. If it made her feel better, I could at least pretend that I was okay. Even if it was just for a little while.

Mikasa pulled back, letting one hand linger on my shoulder just long enough to give it a rough-but-somehow-affectionate squeeze that only Mikasa could ever give. Her lips quirked into a small, determined smile that coaxed one out of me as well.

“I know you like him, by the way,” she said.

At that very second, my entire body lost all function. My deer-in-the-headlights face was back and running full force. I went so long without blinking that my eyes started to burn.

What.

_What._

“WHAT?!” I screamed. Or I felt like I was screaming. I couldn’t really tell, since my head was sort of floating off my shoulders at the moment.

Mikasa hadn’t reacted to me. The _WHAT_ must have come out as more of a stupefied mumble. Her little smile fledged into a fully developed, face-splitting, I-fucking-knew-it grin. “I know you like him.”

“Th-that I like who?” I spluttered, trying not to look as though my insides felt like they were melting. I felt all the color starting to drain out of my face. _Shit. Shit. Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit..._ ****

Mikasa scoffed and shook her head. “Levi, you dipshit,” she said. “I know you like him.”

I let out a long, breathy sigh. My lungs felt like crumpled-up plastic bags in the split second before I inhaled again. “Since when?” I groaned.

“Um... Not long,” she replied. “I mean, I thought about it before, but I wasn’t really sure or anything. But what with the way you were teasing him at the last meeting and everything...”

My face went from ghastly pale to tomato-that-someone-just-set-on-fire in seconds. “I-I was not teasing him!”

“Okay, okay fine. The way you were harmlessly flirting with him.”

“It wasn’t flirting either!”

“Fine. But whatever you were doing with him...”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” I protested. “I don’t like him like that. We’re just friends.” _Maybe not even that much._

Mikasa tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow at me. “Really? So all the times I saw you wake up with a hard-on were because you only like Levi as a friend?” ****

If my face could have gotten any redder, it definitely did. “H-how many times have you seen that happen?!”

“Doesn’t matter. It was still more than I would have liked to. And I’d never seen it happen until you started hanging out with nurseman again.”

“Maybe that’s because I was just better at covering it up.”

“Or because it wasn’t happening at all.”

I groaned in frustration and rolled my eyes back, reaching a hand up and and rubbing at my forehead that had started aching as soon as Levi had gotten dragged into this conversation. “I don’t like him,” I said again. I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince anymore, Mikasa or myself. “It’s not like that between us. I don’t... I’m not...”

“Gay?” Mikasa finished for me.

I looked up, my eyes verging on coming out of their sockets. “Mikasa!”

She held up her hands in front of her, trying to stave me off. “Hey, if you are, it’s not a big deal. Really. You can like whoever you want. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“But I’m not gay, Mikasa!” I shouted at her. I was blushing so hard that I was sure my face would burst open and start bleeding all over the place.

“Okay, fine,” she acquiesced. “You’re not.” She was quiet for a second, just long enough to let me sigh in relief, only to ruin everything by adding, “But if you were, I can’t really say that I would be surprised.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked, momentarily stunned.

“Eh.” She shrugged. “Just a feeling. You never feel weird talking about guys that you find attractive. You remember all those times I would gush with you about how cute I thought some of the guys at school were? You’d just play along as if it were nothing. Like that sort of thing just came naturally to you.”

“I just... I don’t think it should be as weird as some people make it out to be,” I admitted. “That’s all.”

“So,” Mikasa said after a moment of silence. “Are you...”

“I’m not gay,” I said. “Or... I don’t think I am, anyway.”

“But... you still like Levi. As _not_ a friend. Right?” ****

I sighed, my face blazing. “I... I don’t know,” I murmured. “I mean, I don’t like guys. Not in general. But he’s... I don’t know. He’s an exception, I guess?”

Mikasa exhaled and a satisfied little smile lit up on her face. “I knew it.”

“Please tell me you’re not going to try and set us up or anything,” I said, fixing her with a deadened stare.

Mikasa wrinkled her nose. “What? No. Why would I do that?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because I fucking hate Levi. He’s a dick.”

I knitted my eyebrows. “Why?” I asked, even though I probably knew the answer already.

“Um, he’s insensitive, he’s sarcastic, has a serious attitude problem, doesn’t give a shit about anything, has the emotional range of a sea sponge, always has that look on his face like he’s got a broom handle up his ass...” Mikasa stated, listing out the reasons on her fingers.

“Okay, okay. So maybe his personality kind of sucks,” I admitted. “But so does mine.”

“How does that help at all?”

“I don’t know. I’m a piece of shit, he’s a piece of shit, maybe we could be shit together?”

A Mikasa’s face pulled into a smile and she let out a musical laugh. “So you want to live angstily ever after with your hot angry nurse boyfriend but your cancer is giving you shit about it? Is that why you’re so upset?”

My smile dropped off my face and I felt my blush drain out of my cheeks. _Way to hit the nail on the head, Mikasa._

The expression on my face registered straight into hers. “Too soon?”

“No,” I said softly, shaking my head. “Not soon enough, probably.”

My sister sighed and dropped her gaze down into the bedsheets. The both of us were quiet for a while, neither one of us sure what to say next. For once, I decided to take the plunge.

“Whatever you’re thinking right now, you can say it,” I said. “Doesn’t matter what it is. I probably need to hear it anyway.”

“That’s the thing,” Mikasa said, looking back up at me. Her eyes had gone soft again. “I don’t even know if there’s anything _to_ say.” ****

“Well, if you’re not going to say it, I will,” I said. “I’ve been a total overemotional pansy about all of this and it wasn’t right for me to shut down the way I did. And I’m sorry. It’s just how I deal with things. And I’m trying to get past it. I really am. It’s just... it’s going so slowly.”

“What are you trying to get past?” she asked.

I opened my mouth to answer her, but I shut it just as quickly. The strategy made sense in my head. But out loud, it just sounded so stupid. It made me look so weak. As if I weren’t strong enough to just face my problems head-on, like I had to hide from them until they went away. And as much as I hated myself for it, that was exactly what I was doing.

“Is it Levi?”

I blinked and my eyes flicked back up to Mikasa, then suddenly widened into cue balls. My heart went cold. Why the hell did she have to be so good at reading my mind?

I closed my eyes and let a long, heavy exhale rush out of my lungs. “Yeah,” I murmured. “It’s just a crush, Mikasa. I’m going to get over it eventually.”

“And what if you don’t?”

There was that question that had been bothering me for the past I didn’t even know how long anymore. I had told myself over and over again that all of this shit was temporary and I would be past it soon enough. But for some reason my mind always went back there. Even though I had just about convinced myself that things would change, there was always that shadowy little doubt that they wouldn’t. I couldn’t predict the future. There was really no way to know until it actually happened.

Damn Levi and his stupid uncertainty principles.

“I will,” I insisted. “I’m not going to let it go any other way.”

Mikasa looked at me for the longest time, saying nothing but displaying a complicated array of emotions switching back and forth in her eyes. Finally she said, “Okay.” She leaned over and glanced at my laptop where she had pushed it into the corner of my bed. The screen had gone dark from disuse. “What were you watching?”

“Sherlock,” I said flatly. “The Hound of Baskerville episode.”

A flicker of interest broke through the emotional hurricane in Mikasa’s eyes. “That’s my favorite one,” she said brightly. “Can you unplug your headphones? I want to watch too.”

“Okay,” I said, reaching over to drag the computer close, pulling my headphone jack out and pressing the power button to wake it up. Mikasa stood up from my bed and went to pull down the shade on the window that caused the most glare. Once my computer had booted up again, she settled down on my bed next to me and I undid my comforter nest just enough to squeeze her in. I dragged the little red bead back to the beginning of the episode while Mikasa got herself comfortable.

Soon, the whole conversation we’d just had got lost in a sudden influx of snarling, hallucinogenic gas, and John’s sad attempts at getting a girlfriend. And I was glad they did. Not that I regretted coming out to Mikasa about... well, everything. But the whole experience had been just uncomfortable enough for me to never want to go through it again.

All I wanted was for things to be nice for once. To be normal. The support group had done that for a little while, but then it had gone back and thrown everything into my face all over again. So I was done with that. It was a road that wasn’t worth going down again. It would always end up taking me to Hell, no matter how nice the trip there was. Now this, sitting with my sister rolled up like comforter sushi and losing myself in a fictional plotline...

This was all I had.

* * *

 

The next meeting of the support group was scheduled for Monday.

I didn’t go.

I would never go to another support group meeting for as long as I lived.

I’d decided that as soon as I had woken up that first Saturday night, after another dream about Levi had made me wake up crying instead of turned on and breathless. The YCSG was the reason why I was so damaged. It had given me hope for a less sucky life only to rip it away again and hammer in another reminder why I couldn’t have it. I’d gone four years without having friends. There wasn’t any reason for me to desperately need them all of a sudden. And Levi... Levi was just another one of them. Another amenity that I didn’t really need.

Armin texted me after the meeting ended, asking me why I hadn’t shown up. Then he texted me again a few minutes later. And again. And again. But I never answered him. And eventually, the messages stopped coming in.

That took care of one problem.

Now there was only one left.

But getting Levi out of my system wouldn’t take that much effort. As long as I remembered not to go to the meetings and did my best to stay out of the hospital, I wouldn’t have to see him for a long time. And by then, I would have gotten over myself and moved on.

Until then, I just had to keep remembering.

Liking people when you have cancer is dangerous.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it. Now the whole world knows.


	14. Okay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE BREACHED 1000 AO3 HITS. I AM NOW ON A HIGHER TIER OF HUMAN EXISTENCE. THANK YOU.  
> Thanks for reading, reviewing, and especially for waiting so long for the new update. Now that I have the time to write, I swear I'll update on a more consistent basis. This fanfiction has been in progress for over a year, and the setting of the story and the time in which I am writing it are so out of sync, I'm surprised I can get into the right mood to write it. It's been so long, and it's still barely even half-finished.  
> (insert shitty dead Marco joke here)  
> Anyway, I'll try to make as many chapters as possible over the next two months. Then when I once again have no time for anything, I'll have a ton of material to post on its own. Yay.  
> Again, I want to thank volatileSoloiste and frozenheart23 for betaing my work and letting me know how many feels I am capable of causing. Your comments make me feel so important.  
> Also, good news. In case the last update didn't reach all of you, I reconstructed my tumblr! I am now the-angstiest-author. This way if I start having issues with my username again, I can change it again as long as it still has "angst" somewhere in the mix. Also, I am tracking the tag "fic: the monsters inside us" and "fic: tmiu," in case anyone has anything they want to post. My ask is open as well, if you have any angry letters to send me.  
> Right. I think that's enough updates.  
> Story time.

 

 

_Captain’s log. Stardate: October fifth. Year unknown. I have begun to lose track of time in this inescapable place. Still no contact with the outside world.  Communication has been spotty, at best. Supplies are running low. I haven’t been outside in what could be years. I fear the end is drawing near. It may only be so long._

“Eren, what the hell are you doing?”

I sat up and threw back the blanket I had draped over my head. “What?”

Mikasa leaned against the frame of my bedroom door, a weird look on her face. “Um... you’re in a blanket tent.”

“Of course I am,” I said. “I’m writing a journal entry.” I nodded down at the notebook splayed open on the bed in front of me and the pen laying beside it.

Mikasa cocked an eyebrow. “And that requires a blanket tent?”

“We’ll you’ve basically forced me into an open door policy, and I need at least _some_ measure of privacy,” I said with a gesture at my gaping bedroom door.

“What do you think I’m going to do, sneak in here and read over your shoulder all about how much you want Levi’s dick?” she asked, so much sarcasm in her words that it made my ears hurt.

I glared at her, willing my eyes to look as angry and soulless as possible. “I already told you. I’m getting over him.”

“O-kay,” Mikasa said indifferently, looking away from me and out into the hallway.

“What if I started making fun of you because you actually like that horse-faced douche canoe?” I continued, even though I had no clue if she was still listening. “What’s his name again? Jean... no, it was Seabiscuit. Seabiscuit Kirschtein.”

Mikasa turned back and glowered at me. “You already do. In fact, you just did,” she said pointedly. She folded her arms across her chest and got comfortable leaning back against the doorjamb. “At least he actually had the courage to ask me out.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed through my nose. “It’s a lot more complicated than that. We’ve been through this already.”

And now it was Mikasa’s turn to do the sassy eye-roll-and-nasal-sigh thing. “Fine. Whatever.”

I flipped the notebook cover shut and raked my hair back from my face. It was starting to get a little on the long side. I would have to ask her to cut it sometime. “I haven’t seen him lately.”

“You haven’t seen anyone lately.”

“Are you guys even still together?”

I know what you must be thinking. E _ren, she’s your sister. Wouldn’t you know if she had broken up with Jean? Don’t you two share a telepathic connection or something?_ Well, let me just clear a few things up. After my mom died, Mikasa had lost her ability to freak out about most things, especially things as stupid as high school breakups. She probably wouldn’t have even mentioned breaking up with Jean unless I asked her. Also, in case you haven’t noticed, I had kind of been living inside of my own head for the past week and a half. If my house had gotten smashed by a meteor, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have noticed.

And Mikasa was the telepathic one. Not me.

“Yes, of course we are,” she said, her mouth curving up into a smug little smirk. “He’s taking me out for a date on Thursday.”

_Well, isn’t that just fan-fucking-tastic for you_ , I thought bitterly as I jammed my pen into the spiral of my notebook. I swung my legs over the bed to put it on my dresser and glanced at the clock in the meantime. It was almost ten.

“Is dad home yet?” I asked.

Mikasa shook her head. “No. He’s normally back by now, though. He hasn’t texted me or anything. What about you?”

I looked apathetically at her. “You know I never check my phone.”

She sighed and looked down, suddenly fascinated by her plum-painted toenails. “Maybe he’s out with some colleagues or something.”

“Who even knows what he’s doing anymore?” I asked rhetorically.

“Not me. That’s for fucking sure.”

I glanced at the clock again. “Why are you still up? Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

“I was waiting for dad to come home,” Mikasa said, sounding defeated. “I guess there’s really not much point anymore. I think I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Okay,” I said. I stopped by my doorway to give her a quick hug. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Eren.” Then she slinked off down the hallway and closed her bedroom door behind her.

I did the same to mine, then ran back to my dresser and stuck my journal back into its hiding place between the furniture and the wall. It wasn’t really a journal, in the most literal sense. It was really just a notebook that I kept around and wrote in whenever I felt like it. And the things I scribbled down were rarely ever actual entries. Sometimes it was just a quote, a certain sentence that I thought of and liked, a funny scenario I came up with, always something different every time I opened it up and scrawled something into the pages. The only thing about it that had any continuity were the dates scribbled in the corner of the page.

Once my journal had been stuffed back into the tiny sliver of space, I immediately pulled it out again. I cracked it open and started flipping back through the pages. This was the third notebook that I’d kept ever since I had started writing, back when I was around twelve, right before I was diagnosed. I knew I had the other two stashed somewhere in my closet. I made a mental note to go looking for them sometime. **  
**

I felt the soft, misty sensation of nostalgia wafting into my soul as I flipped backward through the pages. Eventually they came to an end, and I was staring at the inside of the front cover. I gazed at the first date I’d written down in the page corner. I had been scribbling my thoughts down in this cheap little notebook for almost two years. I began turning the pages forward again, watching the dates slowly grow later and later. My entries had always been sporadic. But the writing in this journal was weirdly sparse. Some of the gaps between entries were months long. My past two notebooks had been spent within a year. But this one was different.

I’d been using it for two years and the pages were barely even half-full.

I flicked through the pages again and looked at the gaps. Nine days. Two weeks. Three weeks. Six. Two whole months went by without a single entry. It seemed like I’d been writing less and less lately. I flicked back to the last entry before the one I had currently made. It was dated back in April.

I had been really slacking off on my writing lately.

I closed the cover and tossed my notebook onto my bed. I didn’t have anywhere to go tomorrow. I definitely had enough spare time to catch up on this. I followed the haphazard path of my notebook and settled down onto the bed in front of it. After flipping the cover open to the next empty page and dragging a few pillows down to the end of my bed to get into my writing position (lying on my stomach with my upper body propped up on pillows to keep my arms free), I de-crammed my mechanical pencil out of the spiral and put it to the paper. I didn’t bother putting the date down in the corner. I had already added it to my fake little “captain’s log.”

It had been three days since my episode and Mikasa’s intervention. The whole death-hysteria was finally starting to wear off. I was getting better. At least I thought I was. I couldn’t really judge for myself, since I was absolute shit at knowing what constitutes “emotionally stable.” But things were going okay, as far as I could tell. I hadn’t broken down since Saturday night. I had gone out on Sunday to see Mikasa’s tournament (Which she won, obviously.). I hadn’t really gone anywhere else yet. But I hadn’t had any reason to. The YCSG meeting on Monday had been out of the question. Then my tutor had come in for a visit earlier that day. So far I hadn’t sunk back into my bottomless pit of Netflix and despair yet. And I was determined to stay out of it for as long as I could.

There was only one thing that was still bothering me. I’m pretty sure that you already know what it was at this point.

I stared blankly at the waiting page in front of me. I knew what I wanted to say. I just had no idea how I could put it down into words.

I was tired of keeping everything held back and pent up inside of me for as long as I had. The pressure was starting to build up so much that my head was threatening to explode. I’d already started to splinter under the strain. I’d accidentally let the truth slip on Saturday. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known in the first place, though. My resolve was probably nowhere near as strong as I thought it was.

I tapped the end of my pencil against the paper, the stick of graphite sliding back and forth at the tip. I was trying so hard to find a better way to put it. But there was really only so much to it. Yeah, it was simplified. Simplified to the point that it sounded stupid. But it was all I could think. I stabbed my pencil against the page and started to write.

_I like him._

The words spilled out onto the paper, far beyond my control.

_I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I li-_

My phone lit up on my dresser.

I glanced over at it. I’d left it plugged in to charge and turned the volume down to silent for the night. That didn’t stop messages from coming in, though. I dropped my pencil onto the open pages of my notebook, dragged myself out of my position and staggered over to my phone to see who the hell was sending me a message at gone ten o'clock at night. It might have been my dad. Maybe he was finally telling Mikasa and I where the hell he was and why he wasn’t home yet at this time of night. I picked up the phone and unlocked the screen again. The sender and message flashed across the screen.

It wasn’t from my dad. An unknown number was displayed in the middle of my lock screen. Underneath that was a single sentence. I tapped on the message, and the lock screen turned into the clean white background of my inbox. The text message popped up as a little gray bubble on the left side of the screen.

**201-???-????: Are you okay?**

I stared at my phone for so long that the screen went dark. I unlocked it again only to stare at the message some more. I racked my brain, searching for somewhere, anywhere that I might have seen that number before. It wasn’t blocked or classified or anything. But I still had no idea who it was. Or why they wanted to know whether I was okay or not.

I sighed to myself. It didn’t matter. Probably just a wrong number.

I tapped on the little trash can icon in the corner of the screen. And just like that, the message was gone.

 

* * *

 

I was taking notes in the kitchen when it happened again, less than twelve hours later.

_Ping! Bzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzz._

I looked up from my history textbook and over at the counter. My phone was glowing and vibrating madly against the granite, slowly humming its way toward the edge. I shot up from my place at the table and rescued it before it fell over onto the floor. I looked at the lit up screen. It was around nine in the morning. I wondered who would have the time to send me a text at a time that most people were in class or at work or-

My thoughts hit a wall as soon as I saw the screen.

**New message from: 201-???-????**

**Are you okay?**

I stared at my screen and forced myself to take a breath.

_This again?_

I unlocked the screen, opened the message thread in my inbox and poked the little trash can. I selected yes, I did want to delete (1) message. Then I locked my phone again, put it down on the counter and went back to my notes on the table. Whoever had sent me that message, I was sure they would get the point eventually. How many times can someone send a message without a reply before they get tired and give up? If it were me, not many. So I quickly refocused myself on my textbook and forgot any of it had ever happened.

And, oddly enough, it happened again a few hours later.

I was scrolling through Tumblr, trying to unwind after spending almost the entire day on my homeschooling. My phone lit up, and sure enough it was the same thing. Some unknown number asking if I was okay. This time, I knew exactly what to do. Trash can, yes, delete. Then I went back to my laptop and ignored my phone for the rest of the day.

Until I got another text after I came out of the shower that night.

I had just picked up my phone to check what time it was. But there it was again. That same message notification that I had already seen way too many times that day.

**New Message from: 201-???-????**

**Are you okay?**

I deleted that message.

And the one I woke up to the next morning.

And the one I received in the afternoon.

And the one I got after dinner.

And the one that came in at almost nine.

And the other one that came in slightly after nine.

And the one that was on my phone when I woke up late the day afterwards.

Clearly, the messages were starting to weird me out.

Still, I never responded. If a stranger wanted to text me over and over again waiting for a response, fine. They wouldn’t be getting one. Of course, the nice thing to do probably would have been to text back and let them know that they had the wrong number. The messages didn’t sound like drunk texts or anything similar. If someone wanted to say something to their ex-girlfriend after three bottles of Jack, I’m pretty sure “Are you okay” wouldn’t be it. And for all I knew, there could have actually been something serious going on that the texts didn’t tell me about. But, as we all know very well, I am not a nice person. So I just let them keep texting. And texting. And texting.

It wasn’t until the three days later, after eleven texts, that things changed.

It was dark. It had been for a while, but my dad still wasn’t home yet. I’d had a long day, since Mikasa had taken me out to the mall for a while, and I was feeling pretty exhausted. So I had decided to turn in early. It was a little funny, how easy my cancer made it for me to overexert myself. All I’d done was walk around for a little while, but I felt like I’d run clear across three states. I fully expected to pass out the second my head hit the pillow.

And that was just what I was on my way to doing when my phone rang.

I forced myself to sit upright and glanced over at my dresser. The lilting, digitized melody that I used as my ringtone sounded off in my dark, once-quiet room. My phone was vibrating on my dresser, lit up with bluish artificial light. I sighed heavily and struggled to get out from under the covers, then stretched out from the edge of the bed to snatch my phone from the dresser. I looked at the caller ID, and a breathy, exasperated sigh rushed out of my lungs.

**Incoming call: 201-???-????**

As if the endless torrent of text messages hadn’t been enough.

I guessed it was finally time to face whoever had been at the other end of all those texts I had left deleted and unanswered. I tapped the green answer button and pressed the phone to my ear.

“Hello?” I said.

“Eren?” an unfamiliar voice replied on the other end.

I blinked, but didn’t do much more to react. “How do you know my name?” I asked absently. “How did you get this number?”

“What do you mean, how did I get this number?” the stranger shot back. “Cell phone numbers are part of the necessary information for registration. I thought even _you_ would have known that much, brat.”

A tiny spark lit up in my chest like a dead wire suddenly coming back to life.

“Levi?”

A sharp, humorless laugh sounded on the other end. “Who else would it be?”

For a second, everything stopped. It was as if the entire world around me had stilled in its orbit, and now my whole life was moving in slow motion.

His voice. I hadn’t heard it in so long.

“You were the one sending me all those texts?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “Hanji told me to.”

“Sh-she did?”

“After Armin asked. But Hanji’s sort of got her hands full with everyone else in the group, so... just this once she wanted me to take care of it for her.”

“Why was Armin asking her to contact me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him yourself. Since, you know, you haven’t spoken to him in almost two weeks.”

Levi’s words hit me like a brick wall. “That’s how long it’s been?”

“Yeah. You stuck in a time loop or something, brat?”

“No, I just... how many meetings have I missed?”

“Three,” Levi replied. “You weren’t missing much, though. Everything’s been kinda dead at the last few...” He trailed off, and the line was silent for a while. “I’m sorry,” he started over. “That was a really shit choice of words.”

“No, it’s fine,” I said calmly. “I mean, we all know what happened to her. It’s not like it’s news to me or anything.”

“I know it isn’t,” Levi said. “But you left after you found out, so everyone thought that maybe...”

“It wasn’t,” I said, picking up where he left off as quickly as I could. “It wasn’t... because of her.”

“Oh,” he murmured. “Okay. Then... would you feel comfortable telling me what the reason actually was?”

“No.” The answer had already shot out before I realized that I’d said anything. By the time I did, Levi was already responding.

“No? Why not?”

“I...It’s just...” I stuttered, scrabbling for an excuse. “It’s kind of personal.”

“Brat, this is a support group. Personal is what we do.”

I sighed. I should have been expecting that. Just as coldly fucking logical as ever, Levi. “I know, but... it’s a different kind of personal. Not the support group kind.”

“There’s a support group kind of personal?”

“Look, I just... I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Alright. Then we won’t,” Levi said finally. I wanted to collapse under the wave of relief that washed over me.

But a second later...

“You are okay though, right?”

I paused, stuck in a blank space in between one snatch of conversation and the next. I didn’t know what to say next. Even though it was a simple question. So mind-numbingly simple, with only two answers. But for some strange reason I couldn’t pick one.

“Eren?” Levi’s voice was so soft. I got the impression that maybe, out there on the other end of the line, he was in the same place as I was. Lying in bed, leaning back on the pillows, his phone balanced on his ear and waiting for a response. Waiting for me.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I’m okay.” It might not have been exactly the truth, but it was close enough.

“Okay,” Levi replied.

The line was quiet for a while. “Okay,” I said again, just to break the silence.

“Okay.” Levi’s voice sounded like an echo of mine. My face began to twitch itself into a smile.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

A soft laugh broke into the pattern. “Alright, we need to stop. Okay is going to become the new Always at this rate.”

I couldn’t stop myself from laughing as well. “Oh, god. Wouldn’t that be a tragedy.”

“Yeah. Then Bert and Reiner are going to sue us for copyright infringement.”

I laughed again. “Copyrighting a word. That’s got to be a new low for society.”

“So... copyrights aside...” Levi began. My breath stuck in my throat as I waited for him to continue. “You planning on coming back to the support group anytime soon?”

For the second time that night, my answer came out before I was even aware that I’d said anything.

“No.”

“No?” Levi repeated the word, his voice sounding muted and confused. I bit my lip, immediately wishing I could take it back. But it was already out by then. “Why not?”

“I... I don’t...” I was groping blindly around in my brain for a reason. But it seemed like one didn’t exist. At least not one that I could give him. “I don’t know.”

“If you don’t know why, how come you sounded so sure when you said no?”

I tried to find him an answer. I really did. The only problem is that one didn’t exist.

“Oi. You still there, brat?”

I started at the sudden sound of his voice in my ear. “Y-yeah. I’m still here.”

“So are you coming back or not? Because if you really don’t want to, then at least give us a resignation notice or something. You can’t just walk out and never come back. If you want to drop out, then-”

“I don’t want to drop out,” I said, my voice snapping unexpectedly. “I mean... i-it’s not that I want to, I just...”

“You just what?”

His voice was so soft. I’d only ever heard it like that once before. Well, twice, actually. But the second time might have been because of the alcohol-induced pounding in my head that was torturing me at the time. It still felt like the end of a feather slowly being traced along my spine, strange and shiver-inducing but at the same time soft, comforting, all things that Levi rarely ever was. Well, not in front of anyone else. But I’d seen that side of him before.

“Nothing,” I said finally. “Look, Levi, I... I don’t know what’s been wrong with me lately. I’m just... I’m so out of it. I couldn’t go to the meetings... or anywhere, really. Not until everything got sorted out.”

“And is it sorted out now?”

I stayed quiet for a while longer. “Not really.”

“Do you need to talk about it?”

Alright. That was something that I never thought I would hear come from him.

“With you?”

“Um, do you hear anyone else on my end of this conversation, brat?”

I stifled the light, whispery laugh that bubbled up out of my chest. “No.”

“So do you or don’t you want to talk?”

“Um...” I murmured, twisting the edge of my sheets up in my fingers. “No. Well... not right now. It’s... it’s kind of late, isn’t it?”

“I don’t care. It’s not like I’ve never pulled an all-nighter before,” Levi said indifferently.

“Oh,” I breathed. I wasn’t sure if it was even loud enough for him to hear over the phone. _I didn’t know you would do that for me, Levi._

“I, um... Actually, I’ve had kind of a long day. And I really _am_ tired. So... maybe some other time?”

“Some other time?” Levi said back to me.

“Yeah,” I replied. “If... if that’s okay with you, I mean.”

“Alright,” he said. “Some other time it is, then.”

“Okay,” I said softly. I took a breath and rested my head back against a pillow. “Talk to you later, Levi.”

“Talk to you later, brat,” Levi said. I heard a muffled _click_ on the other end, and the line cut out and went silent.

I pulled my phone away from my face and looked at the screen. The _call ended_ notification flashed for just a second before the display went back to my wallpaper. I locked my phone and stretched my arm out to drop it back on my dresser. Then I rolled onto my back again, nuzzling my head into the pillows and taking a series of slow, deep breaths.

I could not believe what I had just done.

I had sworn to myself that I would never go back to the Youth Cancer Support Group. Not after what my first attempt had done to me. I knew then that the group would be nothing but trouble. It was unnecessary, and I could manage just fine fighting my cancer on my own. And then...

It was too easy. He hadn’t even been trying. All it took was a few words, just a touch of mind gaming and I’d unraveled. And he’d done it over the phone. He hadn’t even had to do it in person. If he had, I’m pretty sure I would have melted into a puddle of shame right in front of him. I was like a bit of leukemic yarn wrapped around his dexterous fingers. And now he’d cat’s-cradled me into doing what I had sworn nearly two weeks earlier I would never do again.

Levi had just dragged me back into the Youth Cancer Support Group.

I sat up one last time to turn off my bedside lamp. I flicked the switch and the room went dark. A weak little strip of moonlight seeped in around one of my shades, bathing the room in a soft, barely-there white glow. I scrabbled around in the semi-darkness, trying to find my way under my covers while my eyes adjusted. Eventually I found the edge and peeled them back, snuggling myself underneath and burying myself as deeply as I could. I sighed one last time and let my eyes fall shut.

I’d had enough of the world for one day.

 

* * *

 

I’d told Levi that I would talk to him some other time. The problem was that I didn’t know when some other time would be.

I probably could have worked it out with him over the phone. Well, I would have if I had been thinking straight at the time. But I wasn’t. Also, I may or may not have been trying to end the conversation as soon as I possibly could. I’ve never been a huge fan of talking about my feelings. Even the whole shebang with Mikasa was sort of forced on me. And, as surprising as it may be, I never took Levi for the kind of person who was into having feelings jams with whiny cancer teens. Or feelings jams in general. Hell, I would have been surprised to find out that the guy even _had_ feelings in the first place.

Some other time probably would not be at the next YCSG meeting. And that wasn’t just because I had sworn on my life that I would never go to another one again. Levi had already loopholed me out of that promise. The real problem was that I hadn’t been to one in weeks. A new month had started. The rest of the group had worked out a new schedule, and I had no idea what it was. So unless Levi was planning on mailing me a copy, I didn’t think that I would be able to attend again.

I probably could have asked Armin, if I had really wanted to know. But then again, that was sort of out of the question. You know, since I had sort of been avoiding him at all costs for the past two weeks. And it sucked. Every second of it. The guilt weighed me down almost as much as my liver tumor had. I’d been such a dick to him. But I couldn’t bring myself to apologize. I knew he didn’t deserve to be treated that way. He’d never asked for it. But then again, I’d never asked to have leukemia. So I figured it evened out, in some large-scale, cosmic way.

I could have called Levi back to ask him when some other time was supposed to be. He was the busy one out of the two of us, after all. Whatever obligations he had, my life was more than empty enough to work around them. But I never did, possibly for the same reason that I hadn’t worked it out with him when he had first called me.

That was probably why I didn’t expect some other time to suddenly arrive two days later.

I was in the basement, doing something other than being antisocial for once. And that usually meant I was playing video games with Mikasa. And that usually meant Super Smash Brothers, since it had the best multiplayer mode.

That didn’t mean that I was any better at playing it, though.

“ _GAME!_ ” the automated announcer voice cried out.

“God dammit!” I screamed back as I dropped my controller on the carpet. Mikasa dropped hers as well while she fell over laughing. The final stats screen came up.

“ _The winner is... Samus!_ ”

Mikasa laughed even harder when I slumped over and slapped my hands to my forehead. “I don’t even know why I keep playing this game with you,” I grumbled into my palms. “You always beat me.”

“Well maybe you should start building up your skills instead of being on Netflix all the time,” she said, laughter still lingering in her voice as she pressed start and returned us to the character screen.

“I do,” I protested. I deselected Snake and hovered around the display of characters, trying to find one who would be at least slightly less shit than the one I’d just used. “You can play against a CPU, you know.”

“I know. How high do you set the difficulty, though?”

I didn’t answer. We both knew that I would usually take a self esteem boost wherever I could get one.

“If I play as Ness, do you think you’ll do any better?”

I shrugged. “You would probably still kick my ass even if you were some fat little kid with a stupid hat.”

“I guess it’s worth a try,” Mikasa confirmed.

“ _Ness_ ,” the announcer declared as she made her selection.

I was still hovering over the characters when the doorbell rang.

The both of us turned around and looked up towards the top of the stairs at the same time. I glanced back at Mikasa. “You gonna go see who it is?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied impartially. “Why don’t you go?”

I cocked my head and gave her a look, trying to convey _Seriously?_  as hard as I could. “Because I never invited anyone over,” I said. “And I’m not the one who people come over to visit. It’s not for me. It’s probably for you.”

Mikasa didn’t make a single move to get up. “Not this time.”

I wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but a millisecond later she wasn’t paying attention to me anymore. So, begrudgingly, I staggered to my feet and headed upstairs.

I pulled the front door open and felt my insides turn into slush the second I saw who was standing there.

“Hey, brat,” Levi said. And I knew that was the warmest greeting I was ever going to get from him.

“Levi,” I murmured numbly, as if I couldn’t believe he was standing there. On my doorstep. In person. Not in a text or over the phone. Right there in front of me.

Okay, I didn’t just sound like I couldn’t believe it. I actually couldn’t.

“What are you doing here?”

“You said you still wanted to talk,” he reminded me. “So I’m here to talk.”

The memory of the call a few nights earlier came back to me. I nodded slowly, peering over his shoulder at the driveway. His bright green Soul was parked close to the edge of the pavement. There didn’t seem to be anyone else sitting in it. Other than that, the driveway was empty. “You didn’t send Hanji or anything?”

“She told me to take this one for her. Remember?”

“Oh. Yeah,” I mumbled, my eyes drawing back to him. “I thought you just meant the call.”

“No. Special cases sometimes require a one-on-one session, if they’re bad enough. Hanji’s normally the one who takes care of those. I’ve never done one before, but you already know how to deal with me, so...” He trailed off and shrugged.

“You didn’t just ask her to do it?”

“Of course not,” Levi scoffed. “What kind of callous bastard do you think I am?”

I didn’t answer him. I stepped back from the door, pulling it open to make more space for him. “Well... you gonna come in?”

“Don’t mind if I do. It’s cold as shit out here.”

Levi unzipped his sweatshirt and hung it up on the hooks by the door, then kicked his sneakers off and left them directly underneath, just as he had the last time I’d offered to host a beyond-the-hospital YCSG gathering. Which felt like an eternity ago. The house had gone weirdly quiet since I had left the basement. It took me a second to figure out why. There were no longer Super Smash noises coming from the basement. Mikasa must have turned the game off, though I couldn’t even begin to guess why.

“So...” I prompted, drawing out the _o_ until I ran out of air and had to stop.

“So... what?” Levi replied.

“Did you tell anyone you were coming over here, or...”

“I know you’re not normally the best person at planning, so I went ahead and worked stuff out with Mikasa.”

My eyebrows shot up so fast they were pretty much defying gravity. “You planned this with Mikasa?”

“Yeah. You know, since she actually knew my phone number and had bothered adding me to her contacts when she signed up for the group,” he said flatly. “And wouldn’t ignore me for three days straight.”

I felt heat rising up in my chest and silently begged that it wouldn’t make it to my face. The truth was, I had been ignoring him a lot longer than that. But it didn’t mean he had any right to remind me. I dropped my gaze to the floor. His eyes felt like blue-grey lasers burning holes into my skin. “Look, I- I’m sorry about that. I was-”

“Don’t apologize to me, brat. I don’t really care about any of that shit.”

I looked back up at him, my eyes blinking themselves wider. “You don’t?”

“Nah,” Levi said with another shrug. “I mean, why should I get pissed off at people for something I do all the time? It’s stupid.”

The burning in my chest started to calm down. “I guess it is,” I admitted. His words reverberated in my head for a second. A tiny realization flickered in the back of my mind, and suddenly _What do you mean, something you do all the time? What are you talking about? When have you ever-_

Mikasa emerged from the basement and leaned out into the front hallway. She looked over in our direction and her face went rigid the second she registered Levi with her fuming charcoal eyes. “Oh. It was you,” she deadpanned as if she hadn’t known already.

“It was me.” Levi mimicked her on point. “Just like we discussed. Remember?”

“Yeah. I do,” my sister affirmed rather unenthusiastically.

“Mikasa?” I cut in before they could start plotting each other’s gory murders.

She flicked her eyes away from the LPN and toward me, suddenly brighter and much less angry than they had been when they were on Levi. “Yeah?”

“Um... are you sure this is going to be okay? With, you know... dad and everything?”

“It’s fine,” she replied quickly. “Don’t worry about it.” She sounded surprisingly indifferent about inviting people over behind our dad’s back. I couldn’t help being a little startled by it. She’d never been this lax before.

“Are you sure-”

“Yeah. Totally.” She glanced coldly at Levi for a second before looking back to me. “I mean, as long as he’s out of here before Dad gets home, it should be fine.”

I blinked and ran her words through my head a few times over. I must not have been hearing right. Did she seriously just say that? _As long as he’s out of here before Dad gets home, it should be fine._ Yeah, that was definitely what she said.

“Okay,” I murmured, giving her a slight nod. I cast my gaze sideways at Levi. He pointed his straight back at me. “So, um... you want to... go down to the basement or something?” I flicked my eyes toward my quietly seething sister, hoping he would get the message. He did.

“Sure,” he replied apathetically. “That’s where we always end up when we’re at your place, anyway.”

_Bless your perceptive soul, nurseman._

I led the way as we rushed down the stairs, Levi sticking close behind me. Mikasa’s footsteps slowly faded above us, probably stalking off into her room or anywhere else in the house where Levi wasn’t.

I still had a hard time understanding why she hated him so much.

Once we’d made it down to the landing, Levi directed me over to the couch and told me to lie down. I did as he said and watched as he made his way over to one of the oversized beanbag chairs that were scattered around all over the floor. He dragged it over to the couch and settled into it right next to the end where I’d decided to rest my head.

“The only thing that would make this shit any more authentic would be if you had a giant leather armchair,” he said.

“Hm?” I murmured. I hadn’t really been listening to anything he was saying, if he’d even been saying anything. I was more concerned about the way my heart was malfunctioning over the fact that he was _so fucking close to me_.

“I said you’ve got pretty much a perfect therapist’s office setup down here,” he said.

“We do have a recliner, if you want the armchair thing-”

“Nah. I’d rather hang out over here.” Levi glanced over his shoulder at me, a sly spark in his blue gunmetal eyes. “This way I can smack you if you decide to fall asleep on me.”

I glared indignantly at the back of his head. “I’m not going to fall asleep.”

He just shrugged and took out a notebook that I hadn’t even realized he’d brought with him. “Hey. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened.”

I cringed as a brief and humiliating flashback of the liver tumor summer flashed through my mind. “Can we please just not talk about that?” I whined.

“Why? Is that a problem for you?” Levi asked. He’d flipped his pocket-sized notebook open to a blank page and was tapping a pen against the binding. “Am I going to have to start putting trigger warnings on my words or something now?”

“N-no,” I quickly stammered out. The memory of the first disastrous party at Jean’s in July appeared out of nowhere and joined all the other times that I’d fallen asleep around Levi, turning my head into one big humiliating party. I felt my face flush and silently cursed Levi for his supernatural ability to embarrass me. Or maybe it wasn’t embarrassment that was making me blush at all. Either way, I was trying as hard as I could to look like I wasn’t on the verge of turning into a strawberry.

“Alright. Good to know, because if that was the case, I would probably have to warn you at least every other time I opened my mouth.”

I rolled my eyes and a slip of laughter escaped me. “Yeah. You’re more blunt than a pair of safety scissors.”

“Hey. Watch it, brat,” Levi snapped, glancing sharply back at me. “I’m trying to be nice here.”

“I know. That must be a pretty difficult thing for you, isn’t it?”

Levi’s eyes flashed, and suddenly I knew. Past that expressionless face, past the eyes that always seemed half-focused and unamused, my words had hit something. They were digging into him like needles into his veins, even though I never intended for them to delve that deep. I’d thought Levi would just ignore me and let them roll off. But this wasn’t just another support group meeting. It was just us. Here. He knew that he didn’t have anyone to impress.

“I said _watch it_ ,” he commanded. Then he turned his back to me again. I felt a pang of guilt explode in my ribcage like a bursting bubble filled with broken glass. Why had I said that? What the hell was I thinking? He had come all this way for me. And here I was, still being a belligerent idiot. Still pushing him away. Still trying to get him out of my life, even though for once he had come back to me all on his own.

My next words were out of my mouth before I even knew what I was saying.

“I’m sorry.”

“About what?” Levi asked flatly.

I tried to answer. Then, all of a sudden, I couldn’t. My lips had gone numb and my tongue felt heavy and useless in my mouth. I had no idea what to say next. There were at least a thousand places that I could have started, mostly because I’d been telling the truth. I really was sorry. The only problem was that I was sorry about so many things, I was clueless as to which one I would tell him about first. That is, if I was willing to tell him about any at all.

“Eren.”

I swallowed convulsively and stared blankly up at the ceiling. “Mhm?”

“What are you sorry about?” he asked again.

I strained my eyes to the side and glanced down at him. He still had that little notebook, was still tapping the end of his pen against the waiting pages. Whatever I said would be going down in that notebook. And if he happened to be sharing that with anyone else, even one singular person in the support group, they would know. They would know about everything.

“I-” I choked, trying to start but struggling to speak over the dry constriction in my throat.

“You were lying when you said you were okay over the phone, weren’t you?”

Levi’s words hit me like lightning. “W-what? No, I... I wasn’t! I mean, I wasn’t then... I was okay then. When we talked.”

“And you’re not okay now?”

“I-I don’t know. I think I’m okay, but... there’s just so much going on. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

Levi turned back around and fixed his eyes onto mine. The sharp, razored edge they always had seemed to have melted. They made my heart do exactly the same thing.

“Then try,” he said firmly.

“I know I should, at the very least, but-”

“But nothing,” Levi cut in. “Brat, I don’t care how complicated your shit is or how long it takes you to get it out of your system. You are not getting up from that couch until we’ve gotten this worked out. Okay?”

I nodded weakly. “Okay.”

Levi kept his eyes on mine for a second, and that one second seemed to stretch on for an eternity. By the time he turned back to his notebook, my chest had seized up and every single nerve in my body was on edge. It was too late to back out now. I would have to tell him. Maybe not everything, but I would have to at least tell him something. I wouldn’t be able to lie to Levi’s face. He knew me far too well for anything like that.

“So,” he began, “since you’re stuck with all the things you’re apparently sorry for, I’ll go ahead and get things started. First, there’s one thing I want to know.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“Why did you leave the support group?”

The question wasn’t any easier to answer than the last one. There were just as many reasons for that one as things I had to be sorry for, if not more. Some of them had even managed to conform to both categories. “I... It was starting to get weird.”

“Weird how?”

“Like... It wasn’t the way it was when I had first joined. Like it had changed over the summer. And then, when the whole thing with the unofficial meetings started, and we didn’t have the conference room anymore, it was just...”

“Too informal for you, brat?” Levi cut in.

“No. No, that wasn’t it,” I quickly tossed back. “It was...”

_It felt too much like we were friends. Like we were there because we all wanted to be._

“It was different.”

“And I’m guessing that it would be even more different without Ymir there.”

I rolled over and stared at the back of his raven head. “I already told you that this has nothing to do with her.”

“Are you sure about that?”

And, just like that, Levi no longer even had to be looking at me to see straight through me.

_When she died, it reminded me_ , I thought desperately. _It reminded me that I was headed on the same path. That I still am. I couldn’t stay anymore when I knew that at any point, I could relapse and end up in the same place as her. I couldn’t do that to the group._

_To my friends._

_To you, Levi._

“No. I’m not sure. I’m not sure at all.”

“You don’t cope with change very well, do you?”

“Depends on what kind of change it is.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well... think of it like this,” I explained. “There are changes that are good, ones that are bad, and ones that just make things different. Like, if my house burned down and I had to move. That’s a bad change. Switching hospitals or getting my medication changed I wouldn’t care much about. And if one day I woke up and my cancer was gone, I would be fucking ecstatic.”

Levi nodded in agreement. “So, the informal meetings were a bad change?”

“No, it... well, actually, it sort of was. But... not really, either?”

Levi twisted around and fixed me with a piercing look. “You really can’t get your thoughts in order, can you, brat?”

I stared at him for a second, sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh. “No. I can’t. At all.”

“I’m gonna have a hard time helping you out if you won’t tell me what’s wrong.”

I looked away and stared at the ceiling, embarrassed. “I know.”

The rest of the session went on in pretty much the same way. Levi asked questions, I rambled for a while, and then we would both arrive at the conclusion that neither of us had any fucking clue what my problem was. It wasn’t unproductive enough for us to stop, though. We just kept sitting there and talking, hoping that if we went on long enough eventually we would reach some kind of resolution. But, even after an hour and a half of amateur therapy, it never happened. My problems were still ambiguous as ever.

It was a good thing that was the way I wanted them to stay. Ambiguous.

Even though we accomplished an astounding amount of nothing over the entire course of the session, I was still starting to feel better. Not weighed down. Not like the cancer cells in my bones were made out of lead anymore.

“Hey, brat, what time does your dad normally get home from work?” Levi asked.

“Um...” I strained to sit up from the couch cushions, looking around the room for a clock of some sort. My eyes landed on the dvd player. The neon blue display read just after five. “I don’t know. Late?”

“How late?”

“It changes sometimes. But late.”

Levi turned around in the beanbag chair and sat back on his heels. He leaned his elbows onto the couch cushion and folded his arms next to my head. “Is that something you want to talk about?”

“No,” I responded a little too quickly. “It’s not really a problem or anything. It’s sort of just a thing that goes on around here. His hours at work are kind of crazy and he’s not home most of the time. Not much else to it.”

Levi looked observantly at me for a second, as if he were waiting for something else to come out. Nothing did, so he kept the conversation going. “So... anything else you think you need to talk over?”

_Yes. Yes, are were so many things. Just not things I can tell you._

“I don’t think so.”

“Even though we went over...” Paper shuffled next to my ear as he flipped through the blank pages of his notebook. “...basically nothing?”

I pushed myself upright and leaned over him to look at the tiny page. There was a single word scribbled in black ink, running over the faint blue lines that were supposed to be keeping it straight. _Change._

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“I wrote it down at the beginning of the session because I thought we were onto something. But we weren’t.” He flipped the cover of the notebook shut.

“You have nice handwriting,” I offered.

Levi let out a low, quiet laugh. “Thanks. Good to know Erwin’s shitty-handwriting disease hasn’t spread to me yet.”

A smile tugged at my lips. “What is it with doctors and handwriting?”

“Don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I just know that it apparently doesn’t apply to nurses.” He stuck the notebook back in his pocket. “Hopefully I can someday be the one doctor on the planet who has legible handwriting.”

“You?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Levi said, sounding kind of annoyed. “What the hell do you think I’m in a pre-med program for?”

“Well, I thought...” I stammered. “I mean, you’re already a nurse, so it would make sense that you-”

“Being an LPN is just my day job, brat,” Levi cut in. “It’s not something I want to be stuck doing for the rest of my life. I needed a way to pay my way through college, and becoming a hooker didn’t seem all that appealing.”

Another short laugh slipped out of me. “But why a nurse? Why not something else?”

“The pay isn’t bad and the training was cheap and relatively short,” he answered matter-of-factly. “It’ll also give me experience working in a hospital without making my absence from the floor anything life-threatening. I only work summers and weekends, then I’m at school pretty much the rest of the year.”

“Oh,” I said. Things were quiet in the basement for a while longer. “So... what kind of doctor do you want to be?”

“Oncologist,” he answered.

“Really?” I smiled. “Is Erwin really that good of an influence? You’re following in your supervisor’s footsteps?”

“No.”

I waited for Levi to say something more, but he never did. His face had hardened up again, and the steely sharpness was back in his eyes. I’d hit something. I knew I had. There was more to that answer than he was letting on. But I was scared to try and dig any deeper. Something in me knew that Levi wouldn’t have wanted me to. I hadn’t let him in on any of my secrets. It only made sense to let him do the same thing to me.

I inhaled sharply and tried to find something else to say. “Is the session over now?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s been over for a while, brat,” Levi replied.

“Well, now what?”

“I don’t know. I guess I should get going. You know, since your dad is going to be coming home whenever late is.” His fingers scraped out air quotes around the word.

“Wait. Don’t go,” I said.

Then I shut my mouth and thought as hard as I could about _what the fuck I just said._

Levi was staring at me, the notebook’s cover flipping shut in his hand of its own accord. I stared impulsively back. The entire world had started to lag around me, and the same thought blasted through my head over and over again.

_What the fuck did I just say?_

_What the FUCK did I just say?_

“Why not?” Levi asked, speaking slowly as if I had brain damage.

“N-never mind. You can go, if you need to. You’re, um... probably busy, I guess,” I sputtered desperately, trying to override the embarrassingly Nicholas-Sparks-esque phrase of absolute yearning that had just come out of my mouth. _How the hell did that come out? Why did I say that? What the hell am I doing?_

“You sure you want me to, brat?” Levi’s voice was still mocking me, but there was a little more honesty in it than I was used to hearing from him.

“Yeah,” I blurted out in response. “Yeah, it’s fine. I mean, if you’ve got things to do-”

“As stupid as it might sound, I would rather hang out here and talk about your issues than be writing a five-page paper about alterations in meiosis.”

I couldn’t help the subtle laugh that slipped out of me. “Seriously?”

“Do you want to sit in front of a screen and type until your fingers snap in half?”

“It still sounds like you’ve got better things to do.”

“Better is kind of a relative term.”

I laughed again, and the basement was quiet for a while. Just to break the silence, I shyly asked, “So, do you still want to go, or...”

“Not really, but I probably should,” Levi replied. He stood up from the beanbag, locked his arms behind him and stretched his shoulders back. I heard his spine pop a few times before he relaxed again. “Jesus, my shoulders are going to be made of tire rubber before the semester’s out.”

“Maybe you should ask Mikasa to fix them for you sometimes. She’s done it for me before. I’m pretty sure she could punch all the knots out.”

“And I’m pretty sure that’s not all she would want to punch out.”

I swung my legs over the side of the couch and stood up next to him, taking note of the gentle angle that I had to tilt my head at in order to look him in the eyes. “I’ll show you to the door then, I guess-”

“I’ve been over here before. It’s not like your house is a fucking labyrinth.” With that, Levi started for the stairs, leaving me to follow him. And, thanks to my semi-useless twig legs, I made it to the front hallway just as he was putting his shoes on.

“I’ll email you a copy of the new schedule once I get back to my place,” Levi said as he shrugged his heavy sweatshirt back on. “We’ve got another five meetings scheduled for this month, and if you’re planning on showing up to any of them, you’re going to need it.”

“Thanks,” I took a step toward the door and pulled it open for him. “I’ll see you again soon, then?” I asked when he was halfway through.

Levi turned back for a second, and my heart skipped at the look in his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you will. Later, brat.”

“Later,” I said. Then he left the doorstep and disappeared into his car. I pulled the door shut, silently hating myself for the new soul-wrecking promise that I had just made.

 

* * *

 

“How’d it go with Levi?”

I glanced over at Mikasa from the pan of frozen veggies. “The session?”

“No, the makeover,” Mikasa snipped sarcastically. “Of course I mean the session. What else have you done in the past... what has it been, two weeks?”

“Verging on that,” I replied. I poked at the contents of the frying pan, which still looked too frosty for human consumption. “It was okay, I guess.”

“Did you get your malfunctions fixed?”

“Probably not, but I think it made things a little better.”

“Did you at least tell him about what was bothering you?”

“No, and I wasn’t planning on telling anyone. You kind of forced me into it.”

“Did you confess your love for him and make out in the basement?”

I let my head loll back and glared over at her. “For _fuck’s_ sake, Mikasa.”

“Just a suggestion. Pretty sure that would have fixed a lot of things.” My sister dropped a bag of rice into a pot of boiling water on the stove. “How are the veggies looking?”

“Fine. Still frozen,” I said, poking lamely at the mentioned vegetables. “And I don’t love him,” I added as an afterthought.

“I never said you did. It’s just a general term. What should I have said, confessed your _like_?”

“Whatever. It’s just... don’t call it something that it isn’t, okay? It’s just a stupid crush. Love is completely different. And I’m pretty sure that whatever chemical imbalance is screwing with my head, love is definitely not it.”

“Fine. Then I’ll stop calling it that.” Mikasa leaned over me and peered down at the pan I was supposed to be watching. “You’re supposed to stir them more than that, Eren. They’re going to burn on one side. That’s why they all still look frozen.”

“Alright, alright, I’ve got it,” I said, agreeing listlessly with her. I flipped them over for a little while, then Mikasa broke my concentration all over again.

“Why do you like him so much anyway?”

“We’ve been through this already,” I tossed back, trying to focus on not burning my hands as I took the now-cooked bag of rice out of its pot. I dumped it out into a serving dish, right on top of the veggies and a copious amount of soy sauce.

“I know. I just don’t get it,” Mikasa said. She roughly whisked diced bits of chicken around in the pan that the veggies had recently vacated.

“I don’t either. It just happened, I had no control over it, and now I’m trying to make it stop.”

“But how can you stop it if you don’t know what caused it in the first place?” Mikasa asked.

I stared at her, racking my brain for an answer that wouldn’t come until the chicken was almost fully cooked.

“I can’t,” I finally said. The answer sounded more like a question than anything.

Mikasa hummed in agreement as she scraped down the pan and dumped out the chicken into the serving dish along with everything else. “You know, if you ask me, he’s really not worth it.”

“Why not?” I asked, even though I was fairly sure I already knew the answer.

“Think about it this way, Eren,” she said as she relocated the dish from the countertop to the already-set table. “You’re losing your shit over this guy. You have dreams about him that make you wake up stiff. You locked yourself in the house for weeks on end to avoid hurting him. He’s even gotten you to start scribbling mindlessly in your writing journals about how much you want him.”

I tensed up at the mention of the notebook that I was sure she had never seen. “Wait, how did you know about-”

“But,” she continued, cutting me off before I could get my answer, “you are almost completely sure that he isn’t doing the same for you.”

“No, he isn’t, because he’s a grown-ass man and I’ve already admitted to you that I was being an immature, hormonally-driven little bitch about all of this. Can you just tell me how the hell you-”

“I agree. He definitely isn’t. And knowing him, he probably hasn’t done that for anyone in his entire life.”

My voice died mid-sentence, and not just because she had cut me off again. I shut my mouth and couldn’t say anything more until I had completely rethought my next words.

“Why would you say that?”

“Because that’s just the kind of person he is, Eren,” Mikasa said, trying to be gentle but insistent at the same time. “You know him. I do too. The guy doesn’t even change his facial expression. It’s not just you that he wouldn’t do this for. I’m not even sure that he’s capable of feeling that way about anyone.”

“So basically you’re just confirming everything that I’ve told myself since August and reinforcing it ten times over?”

“You’ve liked him since August?”

I rolled my eyes and shot an aggravated sigh in her direction. “Yes. At least, I figured out I did in August. It was probably going on before then.”

“How long?”

“You think I fucking know?”

“No,” Mikasa said. She sighed and settled down into the chair across from mine. “I’m just saying that-”

**“** I know, I know, Levi will never like me the way that I like him. I fucking _know_ that already, and I don’t need you to tell me.”

“It’s not that, Eren. I’m saying that you have no reason to feel the way you do.”

The truth in her words hurt the same way that it does when a little kid first hears that Santa Claus isn’t real. “What do you mean?”

“He’s a jerk,” she said flatly. “He’s got nothing to offer you, Eren. Even today was a fluke. The only reason he came over was because Hanji couldn’t make it. He told you that himself, didn’t he?”

I felt deflated and let myself drop weakly into the chair closest to me. “Yeah, he did.”

“So do you feel like you can get over him now, or...”

“Yeah, probably,” I deadpanned. “I mean, it’s not like there was any point to this in the first place. And I’ve always got you to clear things up if my issues get in the way again.”

Mikasa shot me a small smile and took the lid off the serving dish to start loading food onto her plate. “Thanks. It’s nice knowing you don’t take me completely for granted.” She dropped the spoon back into the dish and turned the handle towards me. “What has he ever done for you anyway?”

I froze up for a second and stared across the table at a spot on the wall just over Mikasa’s shoulder. I wanted to answer her, but there was nothing I could say that wouldn’t give her an advantage and let her to rip me to shreds. I just took the spoon and obediently forced myself to start eating. She would start worrying again if I didn’t. Even when the conversation topics turned in all sorts of other directions, her words continued to echo in my head. _What has he ever done for you?_

_More than you will ever know, Mikasa. More than you will ever know._

 

* * *

 

Dinner was boring, other than that. Dad didn’t make it home until long after dark. No one mentioned anything about what had gone on in the basement that afternoon. So it was an average day, as far as he was concerned.

It was past eleven when I was up in my room, scrolling through Tumblr and simply not feeling like going to sleep yet when I remembered Armin.

Armin.

Armin, the first friend that I’d had in years. The awkward, frail book nerd and songwriter who was closer to me than anyone else in the group. The only person who had been brave enough to talk to me when I had made it clear that I wasn’t there to make friends. The kid who liked oatmeal cookies and talking to scary mute girls and had next to no cancer left in his body, who had no excuses and never asked for any.

Also, coincidentally, the person who I had cut off two weeks ago without any warning.

I couldn’t remember his class schedule at Rose Community. I didn’t think he had ever said anything about it, only that he was taking another class in lit analysis, a bit of biology and had finally decided to go into music theory. Pushing the potential conflicts to the back of my mind, I sat up and picked up my phone. It didn’t matter what time he had to get up or what he had going on the next day. I had to say something to him.

**Me: hey Armin**

**Me: it’s been a long time. so sorry I haven’t said anything to you in a while**

**Me: fuck two weeks is not a while, what is wrong with me**

**Me: i am really so sorry and if you could please text me back**

**Me: i don’t care when, just sometime, whenever you get around to it. im always available here**

**Me: pretty sure you know that already lol**

I locked my phone and spiked it into the mattress before I said anything else stupid.

I didn’t think he was going to answer. It was late, and I had been so unforgivably dickish to him that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had gotten my text and just didn’t want to reply. I figured that he would text back the next day, at the earliest. Possibly never. At least until I attended the next YCSG meeting, whenever that happened to be, since I had ever-so-stupidly allowed Levi to drag me back into it.

I was a little surprised when my phone lit up ten minutes later.

**Arminnie Mouse: Eren wtf I am trying to sleep**

Relief exploded like a volcano in my chest and lava streams of happiness began running all over my internal organs. He had responded. More than two weeks with no contact, and he had still responded.

I didn’t know what heaven Armin had fallen from, but he was definitely some kind of angel.

**Me: OMG I DID NOT EXPECT YOU TO ANSWER THAT**

**Me: what's new? what have i been missing?**

His responses were a little slow, probably because I had woken him up. But it didn’t matter all that much. He was responding, and that was the only thing I cared about.

**Arminnie Mouse: Not much. YCSG was depressing af for a while, but things have started to get better. New classes are going good too**

**Arminnie Mouse: wbu?**

**Me: Nothing. Literally nothing.**

**Me: I have barely even left the house in the past 2 weeks or so**

**Arminnie Mouse: You say that as if its some kind of accomplishment**

I stared at my phone and sighed. I should have known I wasn’t exactly going to be coming back to a warm welcome.

**Me: well my previous record was 2 years so not really**

**Arminnie Mouse: Eren wtf**

**Arminnie Mouse: You have issues**

**Me: I know. thats why im texting you right now**

**Arminnie Mouse: I’m just happy to know youre still there**

**Arminnie Mouse: I missed you**

**Arminnie Mouse: So does everyone else, btw**

I felt a pang of guilt when the last message came in. It wasn’t just Levi that I had abandoned without warning, or Armin. The entire group considered me their friend at that point (with a few exceptions). If staying away from the YCSG had even still been an option at that point, that message would have convinced me to come back right then and there.

**Me: i missed you too**

**Arminnie Mouse: Eren not to be a turd but can we continue this when it’s not 11:30 at night? I have to sleep**

**Me: yeah sry**

**Me: Armin?**

**Arminnie Mouse: ys**

**Me: can you txt me when u get out of class? i was hoping you could maybe come over**

**Me: or go to beans with me or something**

**Me: fuck it im lonely and need help okay?**

I had no idea what I was even trying to type anymore. I wanted to see him again. There were so many other things I wanted to tell him as well, but that was all that would come out. I decided to stop spamming him and let him infer whatever he wanted from what I had sent. And, obviously, he once again proved himself to be the best friend in all of existence.

**Arminnie Mouse: lol Eren yes i can**

**Arminnie Mouse: I’ll txt you right after class and I can get my grandpa to take me wherever once we work it out**

I breathed a sigh of relief and sent him one last message.

**Me: thank you so much armin. i’ll talk to u tomorrow**

**Me: Goodnight**

**Arminnie Mouse: Goodnight Eren**

I shut down my laptop and left my phone on the dresser. For the first time in days, I finally felt like I had done something right.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Text spamming and writer procrastination. I know that feel, Eren.  
> Not the whole tsundere thing, but the rest. I know that feel.  
> I hope you all found this chapter interesting. Yes, I know that the whole story is progressing slowly as hell. I'm sorry that I am obsessed with plot buildup.  
> I will be posting a new chapter, hopefully in a shorter time than the interval between this chapter than the last one.  
> See you next chapter.


	15. I'm Sorry But Your Son Is Gay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends. I have been gone.  
> I know that I say I'm going to post new chapters more often in just about every single update, and that has never happened. Not even once. In fact, I think the more that I say it, the bigger the gaps between chapters gets. So... I should probably stop saying it.  
> IN OTHER NEWS, my lovely beta frozenheart23 doesn't pronounce the initials of the support group as letters. They pronounce YCSG as if it's an actual word. Yeah. YSCG. Just that keyboard smash of letters right there. I don't know how that works, but apparently their brain is too lazy to pronounce each letter on its own. Also their brain sometimes reads it as "yogscast." So, at their request, it is now official. YCSG is now pronounced "yogscast."  
> No, you are not allowed to fucking argue with me. I am the writer. I am your god now.  
> I'm wasting a lot of time, and I want to get this chapter posted before midnight, so I'm just going to go ahead and get my tumblr plugs out of the way. My new author blog is the-angstiest-author. I think it's pretty much all set up. I might make a page for The October Story, since it has a grand total of two fan posts. I'm also tracking the tags "fic: the monsters inside us" and "fic: tmiu" if anyone wants to make any posts about this. Please do. I like knowing that my writing makes people feel things.  
> Enough of begging for virtual hugs in the form of reaction GIFs. You came here to read about gay tsundere cancer babies.  
> Story time.

 

 

I expected coming back to the Youth Cancer Support Group to be something like walking out of a movie theater and coming back in ten minutes later. I had only been there for a little while. Metaphorically, I had stayed just long to see the opening credits and get the gist of the plot. Then had I left. I knew that everything would be entirely different by the time I came back. It had been at least three weeks since I had seen any of them, both alive and otherwise, and I had the feeling that I had missed out on a lot.

I had disappeared while everyone had stuck faithfully by. And I might have been coming back (albeit begrudgingly) of my own free will, but that didn’t mean the others would be happy to see me. I had left them in a state of crisis. I had no idea what the hell was going on with them, and that singular fact scared me shitless. But, unlike watching an entire movie (or ten), this was something that I had to do.

On my own, I might have never gone back, but other variables had worked themselves into the equation, and now there was nothing left for me to do but solve it before things became any more complicated. I had promised Levi, however unwillingly, that I would be coming back. Then I had promised Armin, and I was pretty sure that I had promised everyone else in the group as well by then. I had basically destroyed any chance that I had at going back on my word. Now I had no choice but to come crawling back to the group like the sad, lonely, pitiful person that I was.

That was how I ended up sitting in my dad’s Highlander on the way to the coffeehouse that I hadn’t been to in what felt like weeks.

“You sure you want to do this?” my dad asked curiously. “You’ve been out of the group for a pretty long time.”

I distracted myself from staring aimlessly out the window to turn and look over at the driver’s seat. “Yeah. I’m sure. I never really wanted to leave forever anyway. I just needed a break.”

“Why would you need a break? You don’t really do much else.”

I rolled my eyes and went back to staring out the window. “Way to rub it in, Dad.”

He stopped just short of smiling, but still laughed under his breath. “Sorry. Too soon, I guess.”

I listened to the wind rush by outside the window where I rested my head. The average temperatures had dropped by a lot since I had last spent a considerable amount of time outside the house. That’s just what happens when you spend such a long time inside that you miss the changing of the seasons. The car shuddered a little as my dad tapped on the brakes, and I slid forward and lost my position on the window. We turned into the parking lot of the small plaza in the middle of town, pulled up in front of Beans, and shifted into park.

The day was October eleventh, and I was finally going back to the YCSG.

I had gotten Levi’s email the day after the impromptu therapy session in my basement. Then my heart had gotten a little more excited than I was comfortable with when I realized that now I had his personal email. It was nothing out of the ordinary, just his name and the messenger he used. But that was exactly what came to mind when I thought of him. Nothing fancy. Business as usual.

It was also sort of disappointing that I thought of him that way, but that was beside the point.

The meeting on the eleventh at three was the closest one coming up in the course of that month. There was also an four-day hiatus between this one and the next, so I had the choice of either getting my ass back in gear as soon as I could or leaving the question of whether or not I was actually coming back hang over everyone’s heads for another four days. The meeting also happened to fall directly onto one of Mikasa’s ludicrous number of practice sessions, so I would be attending on my own.

That meant I had to be stuck in the car with dad. By myself. Sucking at making conversation. For a whole fifteen minutes.

“This is the place, right?” he asked.

“Yeah. I printed the schedule, so if it’s not, someone must have forgotten to tell me,” I replied. My hands went straight to the buckle of my seat belt. I wanted to get out of that car as soon as I could.

My dad laughed a little at my pitiful attempt at humor. “Well, I’m just glad to know you’re talking to your friends again.”

“Like I said, Dad, I wasn’t planning on leaving forever.”

“Alright, alright,” my dad said. He looked over at me, a faint smile on his tired-looking face. “I hope it all goes well.”

“So do I,” I mumbled. I pushed the car door open and climbed out onto the pavement.

“Text me and let me know that they’re in there, alright?”

“Yeah, I will.”

“I’ll be back to pick you up in an hour.”

“Okay,” I said, fully aware that he wouldn’t.

“Good luck, Eren,” he said with another tired smile.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said. Then I pushed the car door shut and walked into the coffeehouse alone.

Beans was a pretty stereotypical small-town coffee place. The shop had a warm, earthy color scheme, soft indie music playing in the background, and mismatched chairs at little square tables scattered around the floor space that were shoved together whenever groups of more than two showed up. There was a counter off to one side with a chalkboard menu pinned to the wall above it. There was also a tiny area at the end of the shop furthest from the entrance, a few square feet of space that was elevated about six inches above the rest of the floor where people could host the open-mic poetry nights that every decent coffeehouse has or perform with their shitty amateur bands if they bribed the establishment enough. I’d seen the advertisements at least a thousand times before, but I had never thought that any of the performances were actually worth seeing.

It seemed like an average day in the coffeeshop. There was a moderate amount of customers, a couple of baristas behind the counter, and that one douchebag sitting at the table by the window and staring at the screen of his laptop as he tries to write the shitty novel that will never be perfect enough to be called ‘finished.’ Then I noticed the clutch of young people clustered in the furthest corner of the shop. There were so many that some of them hadn’t been able to fit around the three tables they had pushed together, and the two biggest ones were sitting on the ledge of the excuse for a stage. And they were making out.

Looks like I’m in the right place.

“Eren!” somebody squealed. I looked up from Reiner and Bertolt’s careless kissing just in time to see someone tear free from the group and launch herself at me. I didn’t even have time to say hello before Hanji scooped me up into a bone-crushing hug.

“Hi,” she said apologetically when she finally let me go. I tried to suppress my gasping for air while she looked fondly at me and squeezed my hands in hers, her brown eyes misty behind the windshield of her glasses. “Where have you been, Eren? Everyone’s been wondering about you.”

“They have?” I choked out, just a second before-

“Hey, Eren’s back!”

“Eren, where the hell have you been?”

“Thought you could bail on us, did you?”

“Get over here! You’ve got so much explaining to do!”

I didn’t need to be asked twice. I made my way over to the corner, then got sucked into an endless vortex of hugs, arm-punches and the inevitable questions. _Where have you been? What have you been doing? Why did you leave all of a sudden?_

 

I couldn’t answer them all at once. And for the most part, I didn’t answer them at all. I just let them do whatever they wanted while I waited for everything to subside. Krista was the only one missing. I didn’t have the heart to ask anyone what was going on with her. I knew enough just by the memory of what had happened at the last meeting I had been to. But Armin was there. It wasn’t for the first time in weeks like it was with everyone else, but having seen him before didn’t take anything away from the value of seeing him here.

True to his word, Armin had met up with me at that very same coffeehouse a day earlier and reacted to seeing my face in pretty much the same way as everyone else was now. He’d had even more questions on his own than the rest of the YCSG had for me now, and I had just about the same number of answers. We had spent hours there, trying to make up for the time we had lost when I broke down. Now we were back together, along with the rest of the support group, and everyone was all over me as if I had just returned from the dead.

Then, in the midst of everything else, I picked out one face in particular that I had missed seeing almost as much as I had missed my best friend’s.

A small smile had somehow found its way to Levi’s lips.“Nice seeing you again, brat,” he said. “I knew you would come back to us eventually.”

I almost forgot to text my dad after that.

It took the group ages to get over the fact that I was no longer off floating somewhere they couldn’t reach me. And once they did, it was straight back to the usual YCSG. Talking about problems, sorting them out, and everyone being there for everyone else. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, and as wrong as it had felt to me weeks earlier, I had missed it a lot.

Sure, I knew I still had a problem. But having people to deal with it alongside me was sure as hell a lot better than dealing with it alone.

Not that I told any of them what that problem was.

The meeting dragged on twice as long as it was supposed to, if these meetings were even intended to stick to the same one-hour time constraint that the ones at the hospital had. It seemed like no one wanted the group to split up and the members go their separate ways, just in case someone disappeared without warning again. I had to text my dad and let him know that I wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while longer. He never responded and for a while I wasn’t even sure if he had read my text, but the fact that I never saw him pull up in front of the shop had to count for something.

The sky had started to dim before anyone made any effort to leave the group. First it was Sasha, who said that her mom was waiting outside and that she had work she needed to finish before school started the next day. Connie left not much later, then Annie, then Marco with Jean in tow. Bertolt and Reiner were the last to go, and even when they walked outside they didn’t really leave (meaning I saw them jamming their tongues into each others’ mouths for a solid three minutes through the front window). It would make a decent amount of sense to say that they were the most unwilling to go, even if my guess happened to be untrue.

All four of us had our chairs clustered around a single table. Armin sat next to me, shooting me meaningful looks and proud little smiles approximately every other second. Hanji was across from me, practically climbing over the table to get closer to me and firing questions at me faster than an automatic machine gun. Levi sat on my other side, and he was... just being Levi. That was all he ever really did.

It suddenly made a lot of sense that Hanji was normally the one who took care of individual sessions rather than her co-admin. In a few minutes, she had managed to drain half of the information out of me that Levi hadn’t even been able to guess at in an hour and a half. The parts about what had bothered me about Ymir’s reminder, specifically. And those parts only. I made sure of that. And even that much still set off a reaction with the rest of the group. Armin insisted on giving me a hug, even though I felt pretty sure that I was past needing one. Hanji did the same thing, despite having gotten the urge to strangle me with friendship out of her system earlier on in the meeting.

Levi was the only one who didn’t seem all that affected. He didn’t have much of a reaction. I wasn’t surprised about it, knowing him the way I did. At least I wasn’t until I felt the toe of someone’s sneaker nudge my ankle under the table and his eyes fixing on me a second later. At that moment, I lost my composure and that strange instinct that had screwed me over more than a year ago surged up inside me. Right then, I wanted to grab his hand more than anything. But this time, I kept my hand in place. Having a replay of last summer would only make my problems worse. I was supposed to be getting over him, wasn’t I?

Not only that, but randomly grabbing his hand would also let my secret out right in front of Hanji and Armin. That would have made matters worse than any covert hand-grabbing possibly could.

I lost track of how long we stayed there in the coffeeshop. I was surprised the staff didn’t start bothering us for taking up space without buying anything from the counter. It was as if we had forgotten how time worked, like we could ignore everything else in the world as long as we had each other. I had forgotten how being around the support group made me feel. How it felt as if I had found a second family, one that I had chosen for myself. One that I knew understood and cared when I had no idea what the hell had happened to my real one. I had forgotten what it was like to have friends. And maybe that was because I thought that feeling like that was wrong. But when I was actually with them... actually _happy_... it didn’t seem to matter.

Unfortunately, there was also something else that I had forgotten. And that was texting my dad.

Somewhere in the middle of a discussion about something completely unrelated to cancer, I heard the door across the shop swing open and click metallically shut. I ignored it. Probably just another customer. Beans was a pretty popular place, as far as its small target audience of Shiganshina was concerned.

I stopped ignoring it when Mikasa strode across the coffeeshop, straight towards our table.

“There you are, Eren. What the hell have you been doing? Dad said you haven’t texted him for hours!”

I felt my stomach drop out of place and land somewhere on top of my pelvis. _Shit. I was supposed to tell him I was still here, wasn’t I?_

“I- uh, I-I’m sorry, I...”

“I guess it doesn’t matter now. Not like you would have gone anywhere else anyway.” Mikasa leaned over the table and planted her hands on the edge with a huff. She had conveniently decided to stick herself between Levi and me. My ex-nurse glanced carelessly up at her, then looked away again just as Hanji wiggled out of her seat and hurled herself at my sister.

“Mikasa! We thought you were gone too! We all missed you so much! I’m sorry you didn’t see everyone else, just you came in so late and we were already past our scheduled closing time and people had things to-” and the rest was faded out into squeaky, unintelligible gibberish as the LPN from hell pulled Mikasa into another of her suffocating hugs.

“See, Mikasa? You had nothing to worry about. Eren is in good hands,” Levi said. “Mostly,” he added as an afterthought, glancing pointedly at Hanji.

My sister refused to acknowledge Levi’s comment as she waited patiently for Hanji to loosen up her death grip. She wormed her way out of her arms and turned back to me, a tense look on her face. “Come on. Dad’s waiting outside.” She stood up and turned around to walk back out, then stopped mid-step. “Or not.”

 _Or not?_ Her words made my guts twist up into one solid block of impenetrable knots. Slowly, so painfully slow that I could feel my neck vertebrae clicking into place, I looked up from the table and towards the entrance to the coffeehouse. The door was swinging shut again, and there was someone standing there. Relatively tall, hair a lighter shade of brown than mine, silver-rimmed glasses, a tired face that put me on a cross-country guilt trip every time I looked at it...

Holy shit, my dad was standing in the fucking coffeeshop in front of my fucking therapy group. What the fuck was he doing? What the fuck was I doing? What the _FUCK_?

My dad carefully approached the table. Everyone turned to look at him. If the knots in my stomach could have gotten any tighter, they definitely did.

“Sorry, am I interrupting something?” he asked.

Hanji jumped to answer him. “No, no, of course not!” she chirped. “We were supposed to be finished up a while ago, actually. It’s no big deal, we’ll get going if you-”

“What? Oh, no, wait, I’m not management,” my dad said, holding up a hand to fend off Hanji’s enthusiastic apologies. “I’m Grisha Jaeger. I’m Eren’s dad.”

At that second, everything felt as if it were suspended in space. The color drained from my face and every last one of my nerves was on edge. _Holy_ shit _. Of all the things that could have happened to me today, it had to be this_.

Hanji stared at him for a second as if he’d just said he was a god, then her head began bobbing slowly up and down. “Oh,” she mused quietly. “Oh, yes. I see it now.” She began nodding faster, a bright smile spreading across her face. “Well, Mr. Jaeger, welcome to the Youth Cancer Support Group! I’m Hanji. I’m a group administrator. Nice to finally meet you!” She stuck her hand out towards him, and he cordially took it. Knowing Hanji, I was surprised she didn’t just attack-hug him and get it over with. A person must have had to attain a certain level of friendship with her in order to warrant that kind of abuse.

“Well... hello, Hanji,” he said. “Listen, I’d love to stay and get to know you all, but my daughter kind of has a schedule to keep to...”

His words stuck in my mind like misplaced pin. _Wait, so now Mikasa’s the one who doesn’t have time for anything?_

“Then just let me introduce you,” Hanji pleaded. “It’ll be quick, I promise. Two minutes tops.” Her entreating grin glowed in his face, though I wasn’t sure that sort of thing would work on my dad. Then I remembered that he’d been married once, and Mom had suckered him into things the same way plenty of times.

My dad started to respond. “I- I suppose that-”

“Great!” Hanji squealed, leading my dad towards the table. “I’m sorry not everybody’s here. Like I said, we stayed late today and I guess people had other things planned... Anyway, this is Armin, one of the members, and this is Levi, the other admin. We manage the group together. You know, scheduling meetings, planning activities out, that sort of thing.”

My dad’s eyes followed along with Hanji’s hand as she pointed out each of the people she named, then went back to the kid who was trying to hide behind the blonde coconut shell of his bangs. “Ah, so you’re Armin?” he said. A slight smile crossed his face. “Nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.”

Armin looked slightly pinker than normal. “Y-you have?”

I couldn’t deny that I was thinking the same thing. As far as I knew, I had never even mentioned Armin around my dad. I didn’t even think he knew that I had friends.

“Of course. Mikasa talks about you all the time.”

Well, that explained it.

“And you’re Mr. Jaeger?”

My head flicked to the side and my eyes landed on Levi. He had his gaze firmly fixed on my dad. His eyes didn’t seem as sharp as they usually did. They were more inquisitive than anything else. I looked back up at my dad, waiting for someone to say something more, just so the anticipation would go away.

My dad and my crush were meeting face to face.

“Yes, I am,” my dad replied. “Said it when I first walked in, actually.”

“Sorry, just... you look kind of familiar,” Levi said, his eyes wandering observantly over my dad’s face. “You wouldn’t happen to work in any field of science, would you?”

I almost missed the flash of pride that appeared in my dad’s eyes. “Actually, yes. I’m a microbiologist. I study pathogens. How did you know?”

Levi’s eyes widened by a millimeter or two. “Wait a second. You’re Dr. Grisha Jaeger?”

“Well, if you want to be formal about it-”

“I was studying your findings for a paper in one of my classes,” my ex-nurse said, sounding oddly excited. “You’re... I can’t believe this. This is such a weird coincidence. Not to be awkward, but I am a huge fan.”

“You... are?” my dad mused. he sounded more than a little dumbfounded. “I didn’t think my work had gotten this much notice.”

“Well, as far as I know it’s not world-famous, but the things you’ve done with staph and strep are just... and the shingles project, recreating altered cultures in the lab. I’d never heard of anyone else even attempting that. You, sir, are a genius.”

My dad’s face lit up with a proud smile. “I... thank you. I don’t know what to say. I’ve never had someone recognize me on an off chance before.”

“Dad,” Mikasa cut in quietly. She had her phone in her hand and was glancing insistently at the door every other second.

He sighed and turned toward me. “Alright,” he agreed. “We can’t stand around forever. Come on, Eren.” I pushed my chair back and got up from the table. Armin tugged the sleeve of my hoodie and prompted another hug from me. I glanced nervously at my dad and decided to just go in for it, whatever he thought be damned. Not that he really seemed to mind seeing me hugging another guy in public. Mikasa must have told him about Armin being a cuddlebug, too. It made me start wondering about what else she’d told him without my consent.

 _She better have kept her mouth shut about Levi,_ I thought bitterly.

“I’ll see you at the next meeting, right?” my friend asked when I let go.

“Yeah, of course,” I said. Not like I had much choice over it anymore, thanks to that stupid agreement I had made with Levi. I had the nagging feeling that I would be hearing from him if I tried to get out of it.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Dr. Jaeger,” Hanji said sweetly, going in to shake my dad’s hand again while Levi watched in silence, that look of mild admiration still replacing his regular bored expression.

“The pleasure is all mine,” my dad said warmly. I joined him and Mikasa, and my sister started for the door as soon as I left the table. I glanced back over my shoulder. “See you guys next week,” I said a little more sadly than I had intended.

“See you, doctor’s boy,” Levi replied.

I felt my face turn bright red and silently hoped that my dad hadn’t heard him.

 

* * *

 

Mikasa and my dad were in a heated conversation about the MMA team the entire way home. She had a tournament coming up the following weekend (which I probably wouldn’t have heard about until a day before) and according to her, our local team was not at all prepared to be facing off against the one they had been pitted against, some team of rich prep-school princesses from Stohess who allegedly had access to all the personal trainers and steroids they could ask for. She was nervous about the fight, mad about some of the girls who just sat around during practice, and most of all pissed that the coaches had decided to arrange such an unmatched fight. It was probably the first time in a while that I had seen her so stressed out about anything.

“And the way the coaches run things, the team always comes first,” she ranted as my dad tried to keep his eyes on the road. “I’ve explained to them before that I’ve got AP classes in school and I need time to do homework, but they just don’t care. I’m trying to balance all this stuff and the fact that they want to add an extra half hour to our practices this week is not helping at all.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it out, Mikasa,” my dad said consolingly. “They’ve done worse before, and you’ve always been able to work around it. Besides, if there’s anyone on the team who should be worried, it isn’t you. You’re one of the best fighters they have.”

“Maybe, but that still doesn’t change the fact that they’ve literally put us in a no-win situation. I don’t know why they even organized this match in the first place.”

“Maybe the Stohess team was looking for a confidence boost.”

Mikasa stared angrily at him until he glanced away from the road again. My dad sighed, seeming a little deflated. “Sorry. Terrible joke.”

I didn’t mind listening to the two of them talk. They got a little bipolar with each other sometimes, but that was only to be expected. Mikasa had to make up for the hours of time lost when Dad wasn’t home, so all of the subjects and feelings that should have taken days to process were all run through in a span of minutes. It might have seemed weird to a bystander, but not to me. I was used to it. I even found it interesting to hear what they had to say. Besides, as long as they were engaged, that meant I didn’t have to do anything. I could just sit in the backseat like a tumor and no one would care.

“It was nice of you to come and meet the group today,” Mikasa said, having moved on from her state of panic.

“I figured I would have to do it sooner or later,” my dad replied. “They seem like a nice group of people. Too bad only a few of them were there.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty cool.” She paused for a second before adding, “Well, most of them are.”

My dad glanced over, curious. “What do you mean, most of them?”

“Just a few of them are a little... I don’t know. Less than prime friendship material,” Mikasa hedged.

“I’m guessing Jean wasn’t one of those?” my dad said with a smirk.

I jumped in my seat as if my dad had suddenly slammed the brakes. _Wait. Dad knew about Jean?_

Mikasa shifted in her seat, one hand coming up to play with a strand of her hair. “Um... He kind of was at first, but...” she said. I could practically hear her blushing.

Mikasa shifted in her seat, one hand coming up to play with a strand of her hair. “Um... He kind of was at first, but...” she said. I could practically hear her blushing.

My dad laughed as he turned back to the road. “That’s how it usually is. I remember when I was in high school, every girl I talked to thought that I was such a geek when they first met me. All I knew how to small-talk about was science fiction, actual science, more science fiction...” He took one hand away from the wheel to flick it in the air for emphasis. “I couldn’t get a girlfriend to save my life.”

“The difference between you and Jean was that you probably weren’t desperately seeking one.”

“You don’t even know the half of it, sweetie,” my dad said with another laugh. The tires bumped over the curb as he pulled into the driveway. Then, to my surprise, he took the keys out of the ignition after parking the car. He undid his seatbelt and pushed the driver’s side door open.

“You’re not going back to work?” I asked. He wasn’t ready to bolt back out again. This was new. I wasn’t sure whether I liked it or not, but it was new.

“Not tonight,” he answered after pulling the back door open for me, even though we both knew I could have done it myself. “Our current samples need to culture for a while, so I’ve got a little more free time than usual. Thought I might as well spend it with you two.”

“Oh,” I said neutrally as I climbed out of the backseat. “Okay.” I might have been mistaken, but I could have sworn that there was something sad behind the last few words he said. It sounded almost unfinished, like there was something he had left off.

_I hardly ever see you as it is._

Pushing the unspoken sentence to the back of my mind, I made a beeline for the door and started walking.

By force of habit, I went straight from the entryway to the stairs, dead-set on hiding up in my room for the rest of the day. Dad and Mikasa stayed behind in the kitchen, presumably to make something for dinner that sucked less than what Mikasa and I usually threw together for ourselves on the days we felt like trying to cook. I might have joined them if I weren’t absolutely craving some time by myself. Social interaction might have been nice, but it was exhausting. Then again, cancer made everything I tried to do feel exhausting.

Even with headphones secured over my ears and a steady stream of acoustic covers pouring from the speakers, I could still hear something slip through from downstairs every now and again. A laugh from Mikasa, some shitty joke from my dad, some comment or another that came out louder than it was supposed to, I was never really sure. I couldn’t make a single thing out, but I heard them all the same. It was like no matter what I did, their presence wouldn’t leave me alone. Not even an amateur, girl-voiced version of Fall Out Boy could drown them out. After about an hour of aimless scrolling on Tumblr and hiding from the rest of the world, I figured it wouldn’t kill me to come back out for a while. Besides, it might have been a nice surprise for Mikasa if I came down to the kitchen without having to be called.

The smell of marinade hit me before I had even gotten down the stairs. Along with it came the hiss of a sauté pan, the steady hum of the oven fan, and the muffled conversation that had been popping in to visit me every few minutes before I had decided to return the favor. Judging by the smell, Dad must have been making something oven-grilled. The idea of decent food motivated me to keep walking, since he was the only one out of the three of us that had cooking skills beyond throwing together whatever took the least amount of skill to prepare. I didn’t remember us having very much in the way of fresh meat in the fridge, but there might have been some shopping bags in the trunk that I hadn’t known about.

The next thing that I heard after the initial wave of kitchen noise was, “They’re so gay it’s not even funny.”

_What?!_

I burst into the kitchen. “What are you talking about?”

Both my dad and Mikasa turned immediately to face me. My sister was standing at the stove, one hand flipping green beans around in a pan and the traces of a smile lingering on her face. My dad stood by the oven, looking like he was trying to hold in an unbridled laugh.

“Hey, Eren,” Mikasa said, clearly struggling to keep a straight face. “Finally decided to join us?”

“Yeah,” I warily replied. “Sounds like an interesting conversation you guys are having.”

“It definitely is,” my dad said. He turned away from me to hide his face-splitting grin and pulled the oven door open.The smell of marinating spices flooded the kitchen. “The support group sounds like a, er... an interesting cast of characters.”

“Heh. I guess they are.” I made my way past Mikasa to the cabinets, just to give myself something to do. “Plates or bowls?”

“Plates,” my dad replied. He peered over Mikasa’s shoulder at her work with the veggies. “Try adding some more garlic powder. They still look a little plain.”

“What’s for dinner?” I asked aimlessly.

“Dad’s making strip steak,” Mikasa avidly responded. “Feels like it’s been ages, doesn’t it?”

As if the smells surrounding me weren’t bad enough, the thought of non-amateurly made food was almost brought me to the point of drooling. “It does.”

I kept myself busy with the tableware while my dad and my sister continued to chat without me. It would have made sense for me to join in, since I had dragged myself out of hiding in the first place. But I was still taking baby steps with the whole social interaction thing. Besides, they seemed to be doing just fine on their own. I didn’t feel any pressing need to get involved.

“So, Bertolt and Reiner are together?” Dad prompted, picking up right where he and Mikasa left off.

_Hold on. He knows about them too?_

“Yeah. And they’re pretty shameless about it.” Mikasa smiled to herself. “I’m kind of proud of them for it, actually.” She looked intently at me for a second before turning back to her beans. I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to notice or not, but whatever her intention, I got the message all the same.

_No, Mikasa, we are not going down that road. Not tonight._

“What makes you say that?” Dad asked.

“It’s kind of hard to explain. Just... the fact that they’re so proud of who they are. I mean, I know it’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be, but it’s still something that so many people don’t approve of. They just don’t seem to care. They’re so strong about it, even with their cancer and everything else they have to deal with. Ymir and Krista weren’t anywhere near as bad about the whole PDA thing, but they were... They were also really...”

Mikasa trailed off and stared at the stovetop. She didn’t have to continue for me to know what she was referring to. The two and a half weeks of self-inflicted house arrest had left enough of an impact on me. My dad, on the other hand, might have required a little more enlightenment.

But instead of blanking out as I had expected him to, he seemed to wilt right along with her. “I know what you mean,” he said. “It’s such a shame, what happened to her. I can’t even imagine what Krista must be going through.”

_I’m pretty sure you can. Don’t you remember, I don’t know, the exact same thing happening to you?_

“She hasn’t been showing up to any of the meetings lately,” Mikasa went on. I heard her switch the stove off. “Most of the group thinks she’s going to end up quitting.”

“Seems a bit defeatist to me. I would think that she’d need some support more than ever right about now. Why would she cut herself off at a time like this?”

_Excuse me?_

 

I slammed a fork down on the tabletop a lot harder than I had intended to. In a second, both of them had turned in my direction, their surprised eyes fixated on me. I felt a shiver run through my nerves and I scrambled to find an excuse.

“Sorry. It slipped.”

A moment of awkward silence dragged by before everything went back into motion. Mikasa scraped at the pan in front of her. “I think these are just about done.”

“Hold on, let me check first.” My dad took a look at her handiwork before nodding in approval. “Yeah, they look great. Good job. Eren, give your sister a hand, would you?”

I left the skewed fork where it was and went to the stove to help my sister dump everything into a serving dish. Once dinner was set up, the conversation once again took off and left me a spectator in the dust. I couldn’t find anything to say in between disgustingly greedy bites of strip steak anyway. Holy hell, I had missed being able to taste other people’s cooking. My dad was at least ten times the chef I would ever be.

“Do you actually think those girls from Stohess are on steroids?”

“I have no idea. They’re rich enough. With their kind of money, people can do pretty much whatever they want to.”

“I know, but don’t they test for that sort of thing? If word ever got out about it, the team would definitely be in some sort of lawsuit.”

“It’s just some stupid rumor, Dad. I never said I believed it. It’s just got the rest of the team scared to death.”

“Not you?”

“If I work hard enough, I shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

“How are the AP classes working out for you so far?”

“It’s only October, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to get a lot worse.”

“It sounds like an interesting topic, but that’s a lot to learn in three weeks, don’t you think?”

“And the entire thing is set up around whoever’s parents pay the most money to get their kids into the program. I’ve told her a thousand times it’s not even worth trying.”

“You can’t just have an all-or-nothing attitude. There has to be some kind of middle ground to take.”

“I get it when she explains it that way, but when I think about it on my own it still doesn’t make sense.”

Yeah, even as a spectator, I didn’t do a very good job of keeping up with them.

I didn’t even know what the conversation topic was until the support group had come up again. And then somebody mentioned my name.

“What about you, Eren?”

I looked up from devouring my dad’s cooking like a starving wolf with a sudden start. “Hrm?”

Mikasa cocked her head at me. “Have you even been listening?” she asked with a tone of minor irritation.

“I- I kind of got lost. Sorry,” I mumbled nervously.

“We were just talking about all the success stories that you guys have heard from the rest of the support group,” my dad quickly explained. Oddly enough, he didn’t seem to be half as put off as my sister did. “I was just wondering if joining had helped you at all, since everybody else seems to be doing so well.”

I placed my silverware down and thought for a second. “I’m not really sure what constitutes ‘help,’ but I think it has,” I said pensively. “I’ve made some friends through it, and it’s gotten me out of the house. I guess those are both pretty good things.”

A tired smile creased my dad’s face. “That’s great,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about it for a while now. I’ve heard a lot of things from Mikasa, but you’ve never said anything about it yourself.”

“I guess I’m just kind of quiet,” I mused absently.

“You didn’t used to be.”

They were only words, but they flew across the table and hit me as if my dad had physically thrown them. I tensed up in my seat at the sound of them, at the slight wistfulness in my dad’s voice. I looked at him for one nervous second before my gaze fell back to the table. I didn’t even want to think about what he was implying by that, but I found myself wondering anyway.

_You didn’t used to be._

What did it mean? Was I not supposed to be keeping to myself like this? Did he think something was wrong with me? Something was, but it was never anything I would have told him about.

“People just change, I guess.”

“I suppose you’re right,” my dad agreed listlessly. He paused for a second, just long enough to convince me that the conversation was over, then he continued. “Do you remember what it was like before you started staying in so much?”

I raised my eyes to him and my fingers subconsciously tightened around the handle of my fork. “Yeah,” I said coldly. “It wasn’t that long ago, Dad.”

“I know it wasn’t, you just seem so different from the way you were then.”

“I didn’t have cancer back then.”

An icy cold silence descended over the room. The look on my dad’s face was stunned, hollow, as if I had just told him that I had killed a man. Maybe three. He looked as if he were hearing me mention my disease for the first time. Like he had been pushing that fact to the back of his mind for years and years and it had never been able to come forward and be processed. Then, a second later the look was gone and everything was back to normal.

“Why are you asking me all of this anyway?” I said as calmly as I could.

“Is it a bad thing for your father to want to know how you’re doing?” he replied. “I haven’t been able to talk to you in a while. I’m just curious about it, that’s all.”

“You aren’t the only one who’s been curious lately,” Mikasa said quietly.

I straightened up in my chair and whipped my head in her direction. She glanced over at me, and I glared daggers back at her.  _Mikasa, don’t you fucking dare._

 

“What?” my dad asked absently, almost comically. He seemed so confused, torn between responses, as if he weren’t sure whether this were some kind of joke or something he should be concerned or possibly angry about.

“Shut up, Mikasa,” I hissed under my breath.

“Eren, don’t talk to your sister like that,” my dad chided me before turning back to my sister. “What did you say before?”

“I really think Eren should be the one to explain it,” she replied confidently.

Then my dad was facing me again. “Eren?”

“Mikasa, stop it,” I snapped again.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He has to find out sometime, Eren.”

“Find out about what?” my dad cut in desperately. He looked frantically back and forth between the two of us. “Eren, what is she talking about?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, and I’m not going to let you keep pretending it is.”

“But it’s not important!”

“Eren, it’s been screwing you up for weeks. You need to tell him.”

My dad seemed to be just barely clinging to our words. “You... what? What is going on?”

“Eren has a-”

“Stop.”

“For christ’s sake, Eren-”

“Mikasa, I told you to stop!”

“For the love of god, would someone explain to me what the hell is going on here?” my dad said, struggling to be heard over the both of us.

Mikasa turned to him and fixed him with an intense stare. “Dr. Jaeger, your son is gay.”

There.

That was it.

There it was, out in the open, where everyone could see it.

_That was it._

 

I slammed my feet against the floor, scraped my chair back and left. I heard my dad shouting my name after me, but I didn’t care. His voice started to fade out behind me as I stormed up the stairs and into my room. I wouldn’t be staying around to deal with the fallout after Mikasa had dropped the biggest bombshell since the beginning of that summer. I slammed my door shut behind me and collapsed onto the floor. I leaned back against the wall, my knees drawn up to my chest and my forehead pressed to top of them.  My dad’s voice was quieter now, muffled, but it was far from gone. The walls between us weren’t enough to cut him out completely, no matter how much I wished they were.

The seconds passed, and it wasn’t long before the shouting stopped and lowered into muted conversation. I heard the distorted whispers of Mikasa’s voice trying to explain to my dad, him responding to her, the shock, the confusion and upset in his stifled words. I couldn’t understand a single thing they said, but I was more than aware of the insinuation in the tones of their voices. Mikasa was concerned, as usual, trying to fix the situation on her own because she was the only one in the house who could. And my dad...

He was at a loss. Not angry, not resentful, just startled.

It went on for so long. Too long. Not long enough. I couldn’t tell, and it didn’t matter. I tried as hard as I could to ignore the change in the air when the conversation stopped and turned into footsteps traveling up the stairs, one set behind the other. The latch of my door clicked open without even the slightest warning and Mikasa came sweeping in.

“Get up,” she commanded.

I looked up from my knees and stared obstinately up at her. “No.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Eren, quit being a bitch,” she snapped. She stood directly in front of me, her hands poised assertively on her hips. “You need to go out there and talk to him. It’s not going to happen any other way.”

“Maybe it could have if you had kept your fucking mouth shut!”

“What is with you? Why the hell don’t you want to tell anyone anything anymore?” Mikasa crouched down in front of me and leered directly in my face. “This is why I signed you up for the support group in the first place. You’re so closed-off it’s not even funny.”

“I am not closed-off.”

“Says the guy who is curled up against a goddamn wall.”

“A wall in _my_ room, which you walked into without my permission, which you do way too much as it is.”

“Dad is literally right outside. He is confused out of his mind, and he needs to get answers of some kind. Now you need to suck it up, go out there and sort things out with him. I think he’s been in the dark long enough.”

“I don’t give a shit what you think,” I hissed, latching my stare onto hers. “I am not going to do this. You’re the one who opened their fucking mouth, and you should be the one to fix it.

“Fine. Be that way, if you want. It’s not going to help you.” Mikasa jammed her hand in between my legs, took me by the arm and hauled me to my feet before dragging me roughly out into the hallway and face to face with my dad.

“Okay,” she declared once we were both sufficiently stuck. “I just want to say one thing. I am not an instant messaging service. I am tired of being your go-between. Clearly, you two need to talk. Not through me, not over text, here. Right now. You.” She crossed her arms tightly over her chest and fixed her acidic gaze on me. “You have a lot of explaining to do. And you,” she added, turning to my dad, “are going to listen to him, no matter what he says. I’m not going to be a crutch anymore. For either of you. Now, if you two are done being a couple of pansies about all of this, I’m going to clean up downstairs.”

Then she turned on her heel and went back downstairs. I stared after her, my head swimming, not just over the sudden confrontation but also over the fact that she had just uninhibitedly called my dad a pansy and had no repercussions. I looked back up and my dad’s stare met with mine. There was a look on his face that I had never seen before. I wasn’t sure if it was shock, anger, or something else entirely that I was seeing. I felt my chest starting to tighten up. My teeth worried anxiously at the inside of my lip as the seconds wore on and neither of us spoke. It didn’t seem like there was anything to say. No words, no place to start.

I was never going to tell him. He was never supposed to know.

And yet, here we were.

I took a deep breath and swallowed the lump in my throat. “Um... you know that thing they say at weddings, right before the couple gets declared-”

“What, _I didn’t know my son was gay_?”

It was all I could do not to take a step back from the venom in his words.

“Dad, I-” I just barely manage to croak out. “I’m not gay.” He stared skeptically at me, and I felt the sudden need to add, “Not completely... I don’t think.”

“How long have you known?” he asked straightforwardly. A shiver crawled down my spine. He was all business. I was past the point of remedy, and it was too late for him to try handling this carefully anymore.

“Since August,” I murmured shamefully.

“August...” Dad sighed and carded a hand into his hair. “Christ. That long?”

“Maybe longer, but...but that was when I figured it out, really.”

“How?”

I felt like a defendant on trial, guiltier than anyone in the history of law, and my dad was the accuser. His cross-examinations were tearing my defense to pieces. There was nothing more that I could do but be as honest as I could. If I was going to be punished for my crimes, I might as well go down honorably.

Besides, if I lied about it now, Mikasa would probably just tell him later.

“I... It was when I...” I started. Or I tried to start. My thoughts were too scattered for anything to make sense. I couldn’t find the trigger, what had made me realize the truth in what I was feeling. The dreams. The party. The back-and-forth of reconnecting with Levi. Seeing Levi without a shirt. The unfamiliar softness that Levi had shown me in the bathroom that night. Levi in my basement. Talking to Levi alone, the different sound in his voice when it was just the two of us together. Lying next to him while Armin played the guitar, half-asleep and dizzy, the feeling that no one else was paying attention. Levi.

_Levi._

“It was when I started feeling things for Levi.”

If I had sprouted a pair of wings and taken off through the window, my dad still wouldn’t have been as thrown for a loop as he was when the words dropped out of my mouth.

“And it took me until August to figure it out,” I finished.

My dad stared at me for a second, blinking over and over as if I were some kind of hallucination. “Y-you... what?” he responded numbly.

“Yeah. That was what I thought, too. You know, when... everything happened.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait,” my dad cut in, raising his hands in front of himself to stop me. “Slow down. This is too much...” I waited in silence as he took a breath and looked away from me for a second. “Okay, tell me if I’m wrong... You’ve been... not-heterosexual... since August?”

“Well, I said it might have been longer, but that was when I really-”

“And you... have feelings for Levi? The one I was talking to this afternoon?”

I pursed my lips into a tense line and sighed. “Yeah.”

“Okay... Okay... oh, god, how did I even...” My dad turned away from me again, running his hands over his face and muttering to himself.

“Dad, if I-”

“No, no, don’t say anything else, Eren. Just... just stop for a second,” he said. He had his hand held out toward me again in some attempt at a peacemaking gesture. “I- I’m not angry with you, alright? What you feel is what you feel, and... and I shouldn’t try to get in the middle of it or change it, but... oh, god, how did I miss this?”

It only took me a second to realize what was happening. He was blaming himself. I was watching him twist up inside over everything that I had just said, struggling to take in all of the information that was just too much to process all at once. He must have thought that I was trying to mess with him, that I was rebelling, or that this had happened to me because he hadn’t been there to keep me on the right track. Or maybe it was just because _something incredibly major had just happened and he hadn’t been there to see any of it._

“Dad, it’s not your fault-”

“I know, I know. This is... It’s the way you are. It’s nothing anyone can change, it’s just...” He had to breathe again before he could keep going. “This is just all so sudden.”

“I-I know,” I said quietly, dropping my eyes to stare at the floor. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wasn’t going to tell anyone, really. I thought it would go away if I kept pushing it back. No one was ever supposed to know.”

“You told Mikasa.”

“I didn’t mean to. She just got it out of me. I never meant to say anything, but then all of a sudden it was just... out there.”

Something that might have been a laugh slipped out of him, but there was too much tension in the room for me to be sure of anything. “Kind of like what happened tonight, then?”

I nodded and the corner of my mouth twitched upwards a bit. “Y-yeah. Exactly like tonight.”

“And Levi, you... you like him?”

I couldn’t give him an honest answer while looking him in the face. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

The question sounded like a joke to me at that point. It was the same one I had been asking myself day after day, over and over until the words had lost their meaning. And every time there had been a different answer. Nothing ever stuck, whether I came up with every reason in the world or chalked it up to my own loneliness, the anomalies of last summer or some kind of cancer-induced hormonal imbalance. The question meant nothing to me anymore.

I felt something for Levi, and I had no choice in the matter.

“The more I think about it, the more it seems like there’s no reason at all.”

“Eren.” My dad was speaking through an exhale, and my name sounded exhausted as he said it. He shook his head wearily and looked at me in a way that was almost affectionate. It would have been, if my ability to read him hadn’t been so screwy and outdated. If we hadn’t been separated for what felt like forever. “Sometimes I really don’t know where the hell either of us has been for the past four years.”

I stared at him, feeling lost. I could understand what he was saying, but none of it made any sense. I wanted to say something in return, but no words would come to me. Nothing would make the situation any better. All that would come out of my mouth was a small, bewildered “Huh?”

“What?” my dad said, as if he didn’t know he had said the words out loud. Then the surprise on his face told me that he really didn’t. “Oh. I-I’m sorry, I’m so out of it...” He rubbed unsurely at the back of his neck, then fixed his eyes on me again. “Listen, Eren. I... I just want you to know... how do I put this... No matter what your... orientation is... you’re still my son. Nothing is going to change that. You know that, right?”

For a second I was stuck staring at him like a startled squirrel. I didn’t know what to say in response to that. It wasn’t what I had been expecting. Then again, I had never planned on him finding out about any of this, so I hadn’t really expected him to respond at all. When Mikasa had ripped the truth out of me at the table, I had been waiting for... I don’t know. Anger? Resentment? Something a little more negative than what I was currently getting. My dad didn’t seem upset about it. More than anything, he seemed shocked. A little disappointed, maybe, but that was it.

When I finally coughed up my response, it came out as a little nervous murmur. “So... you’re okay with this?”

“Okay with your sexual orientation?” he asked, as if he couldn’t believe I felt the need to.

I nodded. I couldn’t get any more words out past the congealing lump in my throat.

“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be?”

I swallowed and tried to force myself to speak up some more. “I-I don’t know. I just thought that... maybe you’d be a little... Ugh. I just don’t know how to put it. You remember what Mikasa said.” I hoped he would catch the imploring look on my face before I dropped my gaze hopelessly to the floor. “It’s... it’s not something everyone approves of. I-I thought...”

“Did you think I would get angry with you just because you feel a certain way?” my dad asked rhetorically. I didn’t catch on and opened my mouth to answer a second before he continued. “Eren, you know me. I don’t see the point in judging people over that sort of thing. Obviously you haven’t already forgotten the conversation I had with her in the kitchen. And you’re my son. What did you think I was going to do, disown you? Just because you like people with the same gender?”

“Um... n-not completely, I mean, this is the first time I’ve ever-”

“Eren,” my dad cut me off again. I stopped muttering excuses and looked up at him and the sincerity in his faded green eyes.

“Listen to me,” he said gently. “I don’t care if you like girls, or boys, or anyone else that falls in between the two. It shouldn’t matter. That won’t change anything between us. I’m not going to look at you any differently. To me, you’re still Eren, and until the day I die that isn’t going to change. I know you were scared to tell me. Mikasa explained everything downstairs. She told me what was going on, and I just want to say... I understand.”

“Y-you do?” I murmured.

“Yes,” he reassured me, a second before adding, “At least I hope I do. I’m not mad at you, I promise that. Shocked, maybe, but that’s it. You’re my son, and I love you, no matter who you turn out to be.”

I stared at him for what felt like an eternity, my mouth feeling numb, a million words bubbling up in the back of my throat but none of them strong enough to fight its way out into the air between us. The silence stretched out longer and longer like the muffled scratch from a record when it runs out of grooves and the player’s needle begins skipping over the label at the center. Still, the conversation didn’t feel finished. It couldn’t end like this, there had to be something more.

“Dad, I...” I said dryly, forcing the words past the block on my vocal cords. “I don’t know what to say. A-are you really...”

“Yes, Eren. I am perfectly okay with your sexual orientation, whatever it happens to be. How many times am I going to have to say that before you stop feeling the need to ask me?”

“Oh.” The word was nothing more than a confused little murmur. “Alright.”

The awkward silence came back for a while, and the two of us stood in the hallway and stared into each other’s souls, as if one of us would find something there. My dad sighed after the longest time, took his hands out of his pockets and held his arms out toward me. “Look, I know it’s been a while, but... would you mind?” he asked.

Despite everything that I might have said about him before, the second he offered me a hug I ran to him like a little kid. My dad huffed a little when I crashed into his chest (I was  _not_ as small as I used to be) and I banded my arms around his waist and squeezed. My dad’s arms draped around my back and tightened, pressing me close. And just like that, it felt as though things were different. It was something that I had never felt before, or maybe just something that I hadn’t felt in such a long time that I had forgotten what it was like. I felt safe. Protected. Like I was being held by some kind of invincible safety raft, floating alone in the middle of this ocean of all of the shit I was struggling to deal with but knowing there was someone, somewhere who would be willing to help me through it. All I had to do was ask.

Wow. I had forgotten how nice it was to get hugs from parents.

“This isn’t awkward for you, is it?” he asked out of nowhere.

I leaned my head onto his shoulder and squeezed harder. “Nope.”

Everything was comfortably quiet again for a while longer. Then...

“But... Levi? Seriously?”

And that was when we finally broke up the hug. I unwound my arms and looked unenthusedly at my dad. “Please, just don’t ask.”

“I know, I know, you already said you aren’t sure why you have feelings for him, but...” my dad mused awkwardly. “I don’t get it. Why him? What’s he like?”

The tiredness in my dad’s face was still there, but there was something lifted from it. He looked at me, that inquisitive-scientist look on his face. Heat crept up the back of my neck. _Christ_. Just a minute ago we had been having such a nice moment, and then my dad had to go and make everything uncomfortable again.

“There’s, um... There’s a lot of history between us, and a lot of what he does is giving me mixed signals,” I explained (or tried to). “Let’s just say it’s complicated.”

“He’s giving you mixed signals?” my dad inquired. “So you think he might like you back?”

“No,” I answered quickly. “Definitely not. The way he acts, I’m surprised he even considers me his friend. Besides, it just wouldn’t make sense. I mean, what do I have to offer him? I’m just some cancer-infected brat, and he’s cooler, and more focused, and smarter, and he has a job and plans for the future, and he’s older-”

“How much older?” my dad cut in.

“Not much older.”

“Eren, you’re sixteen. If he’s even a little older than you, a relationship between the two of you could be illegal.”

I wasn’t sure whether I should have been annoyed or happy that he was worrying about something as minimal as Levi’s age. “He’s a college student,” I admitted, my face burning. “He’s twenty.”

“Twenty?” my dad said in disbelief. “Wow. Didn’t know you aimed so high.”

“Dad, it’s not that bad a difference,” I said with a heavy angsty-teenager sigh. “Besides, it’s not like... not like it’s going to go anywhere, anyway.”

“So you aren’t even trying to get him to reciprocate?”

“No,” I said dismally. “It’s not like there would be any point if I was.” And that was as far as it went. He didn’t need to know any more than what I had already told him. So I never mentioned anything about the aftermath of Ymir, the two-week breakdown, or the multitude of emotional bullshit that I had already given up to Mikasa. He had enough to deal with from me already. He didn’t need to hear any more.

“Well, then,” he said. He didn’t seem disappointed that I wasn’t chasing after someone far beyond my range.

“I’m getting over him,” I put in.

“You are?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you would be.”

Things were quiet again for a while before he added, “You know, if you ever need someone to talk to about this, or anything else, really... I know I don’t always get to my phone right away, but I’ll try my best to get back to you if you call me or text me or...”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” I said to slow him down. A small smile had somehow made its way onto my face. “Thanks for being so... okay with this.”

My dad smiled warmly back at me. “There isn’t a reason in the world why I wouldn’t be.” He glanced at the staircase, and the sounds of running water and clattering dishes were just starting to die off. “You think we should go and help her out?”

“Probably.”

We left the conversation at that and headed downstairs to assist Mikasa in whatever was left of the after-dinner cleanup.

The night had left me with a weird feeling in the deepest recesses of my chest. Just like the strange things that Levi had stirred up in me, it was something I couldn’t really describe, though I knew that it was for an entirely different reason. It was a warmth, a fuzziness, almost like a colony of tiny hamsters had decided to move into my bone marrow and replace the leukemia cells. (I would not have been opposed to that switch at all.) Just like what had happened after joining the Youth Cancer Support Group, something in my life had just placed a band-aid over some invisible cut that had been open and bleeding and hadn’t scabbed over in years. I couldn’t be sure how long the feeling would last. For all I knew, it could have disappeared by the next morning. All I could do was enjoy it while it was still there.

I had my dad back for a few hours, and that was all that really mattered.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now Eren is out of the closet and everything is screwed.  
> This is probably the first time in the whole story that Grisha has actually been significantly included in a scene. I think it's because it's also the first time in a few years that he was significantly included in Eren's life. I hope you liked my portrayal of him. I've seen a lot of authors who write him in as abusive or neglectful or just straight-up gone. I was trying to go for more of a slightly damaged parent who is legitimately trying, but finds it difficult because of certain emotionally traumatic experiences and past mistakes. Did I do a good job getting that across? I hope I did. We'll be seeing a lot more of Grisha in the upcoming chapters. Be excited.  
> Don't forget the tumblr plugs. They're in the first author's note if you missed them.  
> It's one in the morning. I should go to sleep.  
> See you next chapter.


	16. November Relapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I've started doing the final edit of my latest chapter way later than I should have and I am now struggling to ride out this shitstorm and get it published by the date that I had hoped to publish it by. I also have to get up early tomorrow, so doing this now is probably a really poor decision.  
> But who cares? New chapter.  
> I want to thank volatileSoloiste and frozenheart23 for beta-testing this chapter for me and pointing out all the things that I fucked up. Thanks for fixing my incorrect uses of terminology in every other chapter. I already mentioned that there might be a few inaccuracies, and I'm glad one of my betas has a nurse sister who can correct me whenever I accidentally put my characters in an unrealistic situation. Which happens a lot, probably.  
> Eh. This is a fanfiction. Realism isn't the point.  
> Also, frozenheart23 is kind of irate at the lack of progress in this story's gayness department. Well, I put Slow Build in the tags for a reason.  
> I've told you losers once, I've told you 16 times before. Follow my author blog. It is now the-angstiest-author on Tumblr. It would also be great if you could post about this story under the tags "fic: tmiu" and "fic: the monsters inside us," both of which I am tracking. I've got a grand total of like, five posts, and I'm pretty sure that at three of them are mine.  
> Help.  
> If you want to, anyway.  
> Story time.

 

 

Inevitably, things got better after I rejoined the support group.

It all started with leaving the house more often. Even though the unofficial meetings were always sporadic, I was still seeing the other members- my friends, since I finally felt sane enough to call them that- more often than not. My phone would alert me to a new message at least once every day, more if a single text turned into an actual conversation. After weeks of screwing myself over, things were finally starting to look up again.

My dad went back to spending the majority of his time anywhere but at home within two days of the accidental coming-out incident. The fuzziness that had somehow swayed me into confessing certain things to him left me along with his presence, and before long we were back into our normal routine. The separation was, however, just the slightest bit less intentional (because, no matter how much I liked to tell myself it wasn’t, it always _was_ sort of intentional). Every time I told him that I was too tired to stay up and spend more time with him and Mikasa, I was actually telling the truth. Social lives keep people busy, and busy was not something I was used to being.

October went by like an exceptionally long dream. Spending time out of the house gave me the chance to see the rest of the season change in an entirely new way. Instead of watching it happen through my bedroom window, I was living it. I spent the month going out to the Ehrmich Mall with Armin, going over to Sasha’s to bake batches of things that would always end up getting eaten before the end of the day, more parties at Jean’s superhouse and Bad Movie Nights in Trost, and even one time fourth-wheeling with Marco on one of Jean and Mikasa’s dates. (Definitely something I regretter later on. Watching them make out was more sickening than any chemotherapy I had ever been through.) I watched as the leaves changed from their September yellowish-green to the deeper fall shades of orange, red and brown. Mikasa, Armin and I even made it our goal to taste every single “limited-time fall specialty” that Beans had to offer.

Of course, the actual support group meetings weren’t too shabby in comparison to everything else. Two at the Shiganshina library, another at Beans, one improvised gathering at the Ehrmich Mall, courtesy of Connie. The best one by far was the one held at Atlas Park in Trost. I didn’t care that it was cold that day. It only meant that I got to experience October at its finest. The smell of fallen leaves, the colors all around us and the wind snapping against my face made me feel alive, even if all we were doing was sitting in the grass and talking about our problems. The fact that Levi had decided to take a solitary walk with me after the meeting and talked to me one on one again might have had a little something to do with it as well. But I won’t bother getting into detail about that right now.

Jean had a Halloween party on the thirty-first, probably since the entire group had been waiting for him to do so. Nicole was back at Sina and stayed out of it, so needless to say it was the probably best Kirschtein party I had ever been to. Even without the alcohol or people their own age, the admins still showed up. Levi and I caught each other alone more than once, and I wish I could say more about it than just that. And even though nothing like what had happened back in July took place and Levi left at the end of the night, it still meant something to me. Almost everything that had to do with him did.

I tried as hard as I could to make myself believe that nothing but a slightly difficult friendship existed between the two of us. But that, obviously, was a lie. September’s frenzy had left me with expectations that were just a tad higher than what I could achieve on my own. I still convinced myself that I was getting somewhere with repressing my feelings, regardless of how long it was actually taking. Feelings shmeelings. Who even winds up getting into a relationship with their one-time male nurse who looks like a god when he takes his shirt off, anyway?

Not me, that was for fucking sure.

Long story short, things were going pretty well.

And then this happened.

 

* * *

 

It all started out as a little cold.

The temperature started falling faster than ever after Halloween, and, as I probably should have expected, my weak-ass immune system was not ready for it. Before long, being outside started to make me feel more miserable than alive. The time with friends didn’t stop though, and I wouldn’t let it. It was way too good. But, looking back on it, I probably should have started cutting down after the initial month of breakthroughs.

In the first week of November, I suddenly lost the ability to breathe through my nose. Then, as was his habit whenever something was out of sorts with me, my dad became an intensified version of concerned. After playing the medical version of 20 Questions with me, he chalked up my congestion, slight headache and consistent fever of 99.8 degrees to a common cold. Nothing too serious. Nothing to get too worried about.

However, for someone like me, “nothing too serious” means “you’re going to have to stay home and get medicated until this goes away.”

After three days of being stuck inside, I was starting to suffer from abandonment issues. The practice that had seemed almost instinctive to me not long before was suddenly starting to feel wrong. I got restless before long, and after spending a long time trying to avoid thinking that joining the support group might have given me a serious interdependency problem, I asked Armin to come over. He was standing at my front door, freshly showered, holding takeout from Panera and a bottle of PocketBac before even thirty minutes had gone by.

“Is this your grandpa making you socialize again or are you just that concerned?” I asked as soon as I opened the door.

“A little of both,” Armin replied. His eyebrows knitted together. “You sound terrible.”

“Yeah, well that pretty much sums up how I feel.” I pulled the door closed to shut out the cold-as-shit wind.

“Sorry to hear about that. I brought you some soup, if you want it.” He removed the paper Panera bag he was carrying from under his arm and held it out toward me.

“What kind is it?”

“Turkey chili. I would have gone for cheddar broccoli, but I thought it would probably be better to go for something that didn’t have milk in it so your congestion wouldn’t get worse. Besides, the spices will probably help clear your sinuses out.”

“Oh. Okay,” I said, although I didn’t really follow his train of thought. “So... you in the mood for a movie? Games?”

“It doesn’t really matter. Anything is fine with me, really. You just asked me to come over, so I did.”

“And you brought soup.”

“And hand sanitizer. I showered before I came here, too. You know, so I don’t make anything worse.” Armin gave me one of his shy little smiles. As if he had even needed to remind me why we were friends.

The soup went pretty fast, then it was back to the basement with Netflix at our service. After wasting time searching out the weirdest movies either of us could find, we finally gave up on trying to discover something new and opted for _The Perks of Being a Wallflower_ , which Armin mentioned was one of his favorite books. I, on the other hand, hadn’t even known that it _was_ a book.

We started out the movie on opposite sides of the couch out of fear of spreading illnesses to one another, but, as any decent friends would, we gradually gravitated towards one another until we were cuddling in the middle, despite my warnings that I was probably going to sneeze all over him. Then, as the story drew closer to the end, I heard sniffling that didn’t happen to be mine. I looked briefly away from the TV to see Armin leaning on my shoulder, staring misty-eyed at the screen.

“Hey,” I said, giving him a gentle nudge. “You okay?”

“Hn? Y-yeah, I’m fine, I just... this movie... agh,” he said disorientedly as he straightened up and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “The whole last scene was really touching in the book, but the music just... soundtracks freaking kill me.”

I sighed and looped my arm over his tiny shoulders to press him against my side. He shuddered as Sam leaned out the back window of Patrick’s pickup to kiss Charlie, and the music began to pick up as he stood up on the truck bed. Logan Lerman’s voice echoed through the room as the last lines of the movie were said.

_And in this moment, I swear we are infinite._

Then the city lights faded out to black and the credits began to roll.

I adjusted my hold on Armin and let slip a soft laugh. “Wow. I didn’t know you cry so easily.”

Armin swiped at his face again. “Sh-shut up, Eren.”

I couldn’t help laughing, and I looped my other arm around my friend and squashed him against my chest to make up for it. “It’s okay,” I said as I pushed his head gently onto my shoulder. “I know how it is. I’ve watched The Reichenbach Fall at least ten times, and it never hurts any less.”

“Really?” Armin mumbled weakly into my shirt.

“As embarrassing as it is, yes. Really.”

Armin slid his arms around me and gave me a tight squeeze to let me know that I had done enough. Almost reluctantly, I let him go. Never before had I realized exactly how nice his hugs were.

“But seriously,” I continued once we were marginally separated again. “What is it about this movie that gets to you so much?”

“Don’t know,” Armin replied. His face gleamed blue in the dim TV light, the shine of his tear streaks smeared all over his face. “It’s just... god, the ending is so...”

He sniffed, and I feared for a second that he would start crying again. I didn’t want to force him to finish. “I know it’s supposed to be emotional and all, but to me it seems kind of like it’s just another sappy love story.”

“I know. And I get that. The theme is a little overused. But... just the way it’s executed, and how the writer put it all together.” Armin blinked a few times and sighed, his breath heavy and shaky. “It’s almost too perfect. Charlie and Sam just fit so well. It’s almost like... like they save each other from themselves in the end.”

I stared for a while at the rolling credits and thought his words over. “It is,” I said. “I can kinda see it, now that you mentioned it.” Eventually the last strains of the beautiful David Bowie song from the closing scene came to an end, and a round of generic instrumentals took their place. Neither of us were in any mood to listen to it, so Armin got up to turn the lights on while I went for my laptop where it sat next to the TV. With the credits gone, we went back to the couch and collapsed side by side again.

“Annie’s been texting me lately,” Armin said.

“I thought she texted you all the time,” I responded drowsily.

“No, not really. From what the others have told me, she’s not that social.”

“I know. I’m just saying, there really isn’t much else she can do.”

I could feel Armin glaring at the side of my head. “I really wish you wouldn’t make fun of her so much.”

The viciousness in his voice was a little startling, especially since it was coming from him. I sat up all of a sudden and looked down at him, eyebrows knitted. Armin stared back up at me, something sensitive seeping into his sky-blue gaze. “Why not?” I asked gently.

“She doesn’t deserve it,” he tossed back at me. He rolled over onto his side and stared at the now-dark TV across the room. “Look, maybe you just got off on the wrong foot back in June. But that doesn’t mean she’s a bad person. You never really bothered to get to know her.” He was quiet for a second before he added something else, almost as an afterthought. “She’s really cool, actually.”

“She is?”

Armin blinked for a second, as if he hadn’t realized the words had just come out of his mouth. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “She is.”

“Why?”

“Um... well, she listens to a lot of the same music as the two of us,” Armin began. “She’s also into Sherlock. She watches a lot of anime, too, and she’s offered to show me a few. She’s pretty smart. She’s taking two AP classes this year at Karanese High. She’s also a photographer. And she draws. She’s really good. She has this whole philosophy that she’s stuck to since she first lost her vocal cords... _a picture is worth a thousand words_ , something like that.”

“Does she have friends at Karanese?”

Armin slowed down for a while. “Not many,” he said softly. “She told me that no one really likes to talk to her, since she can’t respond without her phone or a piece of paper or something else to write with. She told me...” he stopped for a second, as if he were having a hard time getting the words out. “She said that a lot of the time people talk about her as if she’s not there. It’s like they think that just because she can’t talk, she can’t hear them either.”

The information was like a cheese grater in the back of my mind, steadily shredding away at everything I had ever believed about Annie Leonhart.

I wanted to say something to fill in the gaps, but nothing would come to mind. There was no way to respond to that. The girl who I had automatically assumed was a stone-cold bitch turned out to actually be just another poor, damaged cancer kid with yet another tragic backstory. My brain was straining to bounce back from my preconceived notion, and my mouth just couldn’t keep up. So, like the eloquent motherfucker that I am, I responded, “Wow, that sucks.”

“It’s not that bad. At least not that she’s told me. She doesn’t like most of the people she goes to school with anyway. She thinks they’re all a bunch of shallow flakes who all secretly hate each other.” Armin finally conceded to roll onto his back and look at me again. “She’s not really cold or asocial. She’s just selective about who she decides to be friends with. And everyone think she’s quiet, but she’s really got a lot to say. A lot of people just aren’t patient enough to let her type it out first.”

“Hm,” I hummed in agreement, even though I wasn’t sure the assent was complete. “Either that or she just doesn’t want to talk to them.”

“Or that,” Armin admitted. “But usually if you bother putting in the effort she will.”

“And now she’s started texting you?”

“Yeah. Not just to talk while we’re at support group meetings anymore. Actually texting me. Like, taking time out of her day to type into her phone and carry out a conversation when not even normal people would just _talk_.”

It took a second for the gravity of his words sink in. As of now, Annie was actually taking time out of her day to communicate with him over the dozens of miles between them. It had taken way less time for him to do the same thing to me. But then again, I didn’t really have any excuses. Annie was an actual student who went to an actual school and had an actual schedule that she had to stick to. As for me, I did next to nothing with my life. So if I wasn’t texting a friend, there were only so many other things that I could be doing, most likely just being too lazy to bother with human interaction. Annie, on the other hand, had a life to live. And now my best friend had somehow been assimilated into it.

“How selective is she, again?” I settled on asking.

“I don’t actually know. I don’t think there’s a way to gauge it,” Armin replied. “All I know is that it’s taken months for her to let me get this far.”

I sighed and sank back into the couch. “Do you like her?”

“Yeah, I do,” Armin said absently. “I know how she seems when you first get to know her... shit, I know how she _still_ seems to you. But if you try, you can get past all of that, and then a whole realm of possibilities open up. There’s a lot more to her than just the missing vocal cords and the oversized sweatshirt. The whole stoicism thing is really just the front she puts on to keep people away. She’s kind of like a geode with a really thick shell. There are gems behind it. You just have to dig a lot deeper than you do with most people to get to them.”

I lifted my eyes away from Armin and stared at the blank, darkened screen of the TV, not sure at all what sorts of emotions were seeping into my facial expression. Whatever they were, I didn’t want him to see them. His words kept echoing in my head. Stoicism front. Thick shell. Dig a lot deeper. The phrases were striking a chord and resonating somewhere in me. I happened to know someone else who was exactly like that.

_Is that what I have to do to get to you, Levi? Dig deeper?_

_Shut up, Eren. You’re supposed to be getting over him, remember?_

“What are you thinking about?”

“Huh?” I started a little at the sudden sound of Armin’s voice and glanced back down at him. “Oh. Just... some stuff. Nothing, really.”

“Oh. Okay.” In all the time that we had been friends, it had only taken Armin a few weeks to learn that _nothing_ usually meant _I don’t want to talk about it_.

Somewhere above our heads, tires scraped over the curb as a car pulled into the driveway and sent faint vibrations traveling through the framework of the house. I glanced at the glowing time display on the cable box. Just gone eight.

“Is that your dad?” Armin asked suddenly.

“I think so.”

“He’s a little earlier than usual, isn’t he?”

I looked up at the ceiling. The faint shuffle of the front door swinging open filtered down from the hallway upstairs.

“Yeah, he is.” **  
**

* * *

 

At approximately two in the morning, I woke up suffocating.

My eyes flew open to stare at the dark grey expanse of the ceiling. I was lying on my back. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing on my back. I never slept on my back. I had no idea how I had rolled over that way, but I didn’t have the time or priority to try and figure it out.

My nose felt as if it were sealed with tile caulk, my mouth held shut with cold-grime. I tried to inhale a little, but that only forced the snot back further, running into my throat and making the congestion worse. The sensation itched my throat and I reflexively coughed. A sharp, searing pain shot up through my ribcage, as if someone hiding inside my mattress had ripped through my sheets and stabbed me. I gasped at the feeling, and in seconds I was completely awake. Then everything began caving in on me all at once.

I was shivering uncontrollably, shuddering under my covers, struggling to breathe even though nothing would come through my airways. I wrenched my mouth open to get some more air in, but the feeling triggered something in my lungs and I began coughing like a drowning man. My breaths were wet and haggard, a thick and strange-tasting fluid coming up with the rapid bursts of air. Each pulse of my ribs fired another stab of pain through my nerves. The room was freezing cold. I didn’t remember it being like this when I fell asleep. Just a few hours ago everything had been fine, and all of a sudden I felt as if someone had submerged me in ice water before laying me in bed. The cold sweat that drenched my pajamas and sheets was only making it worse.

I couldn’t breathe. My chest was on fire, my throat was raw, and my nose still wouldn’t cooperate. I was starting to lose feeling in my fingertips. Even in the dark, I could make out faint grey spots floating in front of my eyes. The room felt like a freezer, airtight and cold and slowly leeching the life out of me.

I screamed.

I didn’t know what else to do. I felt like I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything, could only scream out the one name that I knew would respond to me, the one I knew would be there without question. I cried out for Mikasa. At first there was no response, but the second time I screamed for her my door flew open and the light flicked on. But my sister wasn’t the one who had come in first.

My dad hovered over me as I stared helplessly up at the ceiling and thrashed weakly under my covers, trying to get enough air into my lungs to tell him what was happening.

_Dad, I can’t breathe._

The door smacked against the wall again as Mikasa staggered into the room. I saw her from the corner of my eye, just barely caught sight of the terrified look on her face.

_It’s so cold. I can’t breathe._

My dad was shouting something, but I couldn’t understand him. I thought I heard my name once or twice, but there wasn’t any hope of me responding.

_Help me._

He turned away for a second, yelled something at Mikasa, then disappeared. I watched him leave, watched as he rushed out of the room and into the darkened hallway outside. Then my sister was at next to me, murmuring something or other, propping me up on the pillows to get me into a better position to breathe. But I didn’t pay attention to her. I was too fixated on the door, on the fact that he had gone through it and left me here. It might have only been a few seconds, but I still didn’t see him anywhere.

_Of course. Of course you’re leaving. Now that I finally need you, you’re leaving._

The spots in my vision blew up like fireworks. Everything went grey after that. My eyes were open, but I didn’t see a thing. Someone lifted me out of the bed and carried me downstairs. I was shoved in the backseat of the Highlander, and someone climbed in alongside me.

I passed out on the way to the hospital.

 

* * *

 

By the time I finally woke up again, I wasn’t in my room anymore. I wasn’t even anywhere near my house.

I was lying on my side in an overnight bed in Trost Regional Hospital. Again.

With a considerable amount of effort, I propped myself up on my arms. My nose still wasn’t functioning the way it was supposed to. I glanced around for a tissue box, spied one on the rolling side table, and greatly appreciated finally being able to clear about a pint of mucus out of my nostrils. However, the relief didn’t last, and less than a minute later I went into a short but fairly violent coughing fit. The same strange taste from the night before rose up in the back of my throat, along with a dull, aching feeling that dug into my chest like a billion small, blunt allergy-test needles. A fine layer of slime had appeared on my tongue when it ended. I scraped it off with my teeth and spat it out into another tissue.

The door swung open and someone came sprinting through.

“Eren! Oh my god, you’re awake!”

Mikasa rushed over to my bed and almost collapsed on top of me. She probably would have if it weren’t for... whatever the hell was going on with me. Instead, she stumbled at the edge of the bed, a slight hesitation running through her limbs, then decided to stand, leaning a considerable amount of her weight onto the edge of the bed.

“M-Mikasa,” I croaked. My throat felt as if it were covered in dried glue. “Wh-what... happened?”

“Your fever spiked last night,” she gently explained. She reached a hand out and placed it gently on the top of my head, running her fingers through my hair. “It was really bad. Dad heard you screaming, and when we came in you were gasping for air and you were absolutely _burning up_ , then Dad had to carry you out to the car...”

“D-dad carried me to the car?”

“Yes,” Mikasa said, seemingly unable to stop speaking. “What, did you think you walked out yourself? You could barely keep your eyes open.”

“Do they know what’s wrong?”

“They think it’s pneumonia,” she replied. “Nobody is really sure what happened. Your fever was insanely high, and you weren’t breathing right. Dr. Erwin said you probably picked up something else while your immune system was already down and fighting that cold you had. They’ve got you on antibiotics right now, and there was all this fluid in your lungs that they had to pump out-”

I didn’t even have the warning of the door swinging open before someone else walked in and asked, “Mikasa, why did you run off ahead of me? He hasn’t woken up yet, and I don’t think he’ll appreciate if you-”

And just like that, my dad had appeared in the doorway. He was pulling the door closed behind him, I looked past Mikasa at the sound of his voice, and our eyes met across the room. He was surprised to see me sitting up and speaking, probably surprised to see me even awake at all. Even with all the energy of shock there, he still seemed so tired, so worn out, like me and my dysfunctional immune system had kept him up all night. And, knowing him, that was probably the case.

When I said that he only ever cared about me when I was sick, I probably should have mentioned what it meant when my dad cared about something. When he was concerned or fascinated or some other all-consuming emotion by something, anything at all, that thing would priority over pretty much anything else in his life. And by that, I mean he didn’t put anything above it. Not food, not sleep, nothing. It would only make sense that he’d be willing to lose the little sleep he consistently got in order to keep his only biological child alive.

“Eren,” he said, almost breathed. “Y-you’re awake.”

“Yeah,” I said numbly, giving him a small nod.

_You carried me to the car?_

“How are you feeling?” he asked straight away, making a beeline for the open spot by the bed beside my sister. “Is anything wrong? Anything you need?”

“N-no, I don’t think so. Maybe a little water, but nothing urgent or anything.”

“Right. We should probably ask your nurse when she gets back.”

So my nurse was a woman this time. I wondered who.

_You carried me to the car._

I lamely tried to pull my legs into a more comfortable position, since they had gone numb from being stretched out for so long. There was a dull ache in my arm, and I reluctantly noticed an IV tube that was plugged into the same place that ones like it had been so many times before in my life. “What did they put me on?” I asked.

“Mostly Rapivab, with a few different antibiotics mixed in,” he replied, glancing over the collection of small plastic bags hanging on the metal rack above the IV dispenser. “I figured right away that you had somehow contracted pneumonia, and that was the same conclusion that the other doctors came to. Most of them were fairly sure that it came from that cold you had, but you were displaying bacterial symptoms as well, so they decided to go ahead and cover all their bases before they tried anything else on you.”

“Oh. Alright.”

_You carried me._

“Did Dr. Erwin say anything else?”

“Not much. He and the staff are going to keep looking you over, since you’re no longer in critical condition.” In between looking him in the face and dropping my gaze back to the sheets, I noticed a minor twitch in his fingers. I thought about what Mikasa had done only a minute earlier, the way she had carded her fingers lovingly into my hair, and that funny dad-like thing he used to do all the time, when I was shorter and it wasn’t awkward when we got close to one another. He probably wanted to ruffle my hair right then, that clichéd little dad-gesture that was somehow supposed let the kids know things were going to be alright. And I would have let him, if only he had been willing to try.

Mikasa picked up the conversation after that, then my current nurse walked in not long afterward. I wasn’t sure that I had ever seen her before. She seemed young, even younger than Levi, though I couldn’t be entirely sure. Her warm ambery eyes landed on me, brightened with the notification that I was sitting up with my eyes open, and she smiled sweetly in my direction.

“Well, look who’s finally awake,” she chimed. “You were out for almost ten hours.” Her voice sounded the same as that of someone who voice-acted for Disney princess movies. She had a cute pixie-face framed with strawberry-blonde hair that was cropped neatly at her chin. I wasn’t going to try to get around the fact that she was really pretty.

“Ten?” I mused, rubbing my fingers over my forehead and into my hair since Mikasa’s were now absent. “Wait... what time is it?”

“Almost noon,” she replied cordially as she went about adjusting my IV settings. “There’s a clock on the wall, if you want to make sure.”

“R-right. Thanks.” I glanced across the room, and just as there was in every other time I had been here, it was right there in front of me. My new nurse had certainly been nicer about pointing it out than Levi was.

“There. That’s settled...” She turned away from the flow controls and smiled at me again. “My name is Petra, by the way. I don’t think I introduced myself.”

“Okay. I’m-” I started, but I dropped it almost instantly. “Wait. Never mind. You probably already know who I am. Patient files and all that...” I flushed awkwardly and rubbed at the back of my neck, once again shamed by my own social ineptitude. But Petra just laughed in response.

“It’s alright. Sometimes it just helps people get more comfortable,” she said. She took a thermometer down from its charging dock on the wall, clicked a cover onto the end and held it in front of my face. “Open your mouth for me?”

I did as I was told, she stuck the metal probe under my tongue, and the device went off a second later. Petra looked at the reading, frowned and scribbled something down onto the clipboard that every nurse ever seemed to need on hand at all times. She was back to being all smiles less than a second later. “Is there anything else you need?”

“If you could get him some water, that would be great,” my dad cut in before I could make the request myself. Someone was certainly feeling proactive.

“Water. Okay. Anything else?” Petra asked like an eager waitress.

“No, that’s it for now,” I said definitively. I didn’t want to be making too much of a scene right after I woke up from probably the most demanding coma that I had ever been in.

“Remember, I’ll be coming back to check on you every two hours. And if there’s anything you need, you’ve got me on call right there,” she said, pointing out the green button on the TV remote that I knew all too well. Then she walked out of the room, leaving the door ajar behind her.

“Your temperature is a hundred and one point three, if you were wondering,” Mikasa said for no apparent reason.

“Great. Now I know exactly how well-cooked my organs will be when they do the autopsy.”

My sister sighed and sat down on the side of the bed, shoving me carelessly to the side. “Don’t talk to me about freaking autopsies,” she said flatly. “How are you feeling? Are you breathing any easier?”

“My nose still feels like someone filled it with glue and left it to dry, if that’s what you’re asking.” I sniffed in between sentences to reinforce my point. “But as far as I can tell, I’m not suffocating anymore.”

“They’ll probably be monitoring you to make sure you don’t fall asleep on your back again,” my dad contributed. “That was what happened last night. Mucus was running down your throat. To put it in a way you’d understand, you were inhaling it and choking on it. That combined with the fluid that was building up in your lungs left your breathing pretty seriously compromised. There was all sorts of stuff that they had to suction out of your airways when you came in last night. You should have seen it.”

I cringed internally. “Thanks for that lovely visual, Dad.”

“Hey, it’s just medical information. I would think you were used to it by now.”

I quickly brushed the comment off and kept talking with Mikasa. He was right, though. I was completely accustomed to my dad’s medical talk. His stupid jokes, too. I had been living with them for as long as I could remember, and probably would be for the rest of either his life or mine.

Him being with me for more than a few hours at a time, though, was something that would take some getting used to.

 

* * *

 

Dr. Erwin came in to talk to us not much later.

Contrary to what I had been expecting, my dad didn’t walk out of the hospital once he was reassured that I wouldn’t choke to death on my own snot while he was gone. He stuck around for the whole day, and so did Mikasa. It made sense for my sister to be there, since we only had one car and she had no other way of getting out of there. But my dad could have left any time he wanted/ He never did.

His presence was seriously starting to make me wonder what was going through his head. He was no Levi when it came to maintaining a constant blank expression, but our communication skills still weren’t at the level that they probably should have been. Maybe he had been diagnosed with cancer too and hadn’t found a way to tell me yet. It would only make sense that he wanted to spend a decent proportion of the time he had left with his son who would understand how having malfunctioning cells felt.

_Life is just big one cancerous party after the other, isn’t it?_

The first few minutes were spent on a discussion of minutia details between my dad and Dr. Erwin. They went over emergency room costs, my board payments if I wanted to stay in the single room I had ended up in, how much treatment would be if something else went wrong while I was in their care, and a lot of other medical crap that I didn’t really bother paying much attention to. Then the important part began.

“We extracted some blood from you last night while you were unconscious,” he began. “Probably for the best, since you might not have been able to hold still if you had still been awake.” He smirked charmingly at me, raising one eyebrow while he waited for me to laugh at his joke. I was swayed into giving him a little snicker. I honestly had to wonder why someone like him had chosen to go into the medical field instead of show business. “We found a small concentration of rhinovirus antibodies, which we had been expecting. Then, in addition to that, we came across a fairly ample population of streptococcus bacteria in the samples, as well as quite a lot of dead cell material. Long story short, you’ve managed to contract something else in addition to your cold, and judging by the symptoms it has definitely turned into bacterial pneumonia.”

“Not viral? So the cold didn’t cause anything?” my dad inquired.

“Not that we can tell, since the bacterial symptoms are far more prominent than anything else, but we’ll keep looking into it. From this point onward, we’re going to be keeping him on an Azithromycin drip, and we’ll be keeping a close eye on him to see if anything more develops.”

“Ah, I see. Any idea what might have prompted it to get this far?”

_Well, isn’t that nice. Looks like I’m going to be your next field research subject, Dad._

“It was probably an immune problem,” Dr. Erwin elaborated. “As you know, with his cancer, most of the blood cells he produces are abnormal and can’t function as healthy cells would. Most likely what happened was the little immune strength that he had was being geared towards fighting the first infection, such that when the second one occurred, his entire system was overwhelmed. Without any ability to fight it, the disease would naturally progress at an unprecedented rate.”

My dad nodded. “Alright. But Eren hasn’t been out in the open in nearly a week.” _Wow, Dad, way to tell the world how proud you are of your shut-in son._ “How could he have caught something this serious?”

“I think that’s something we should have Eren explain for himself,” Dr. Erwin said, glancing his clear blue eyes pointedly at me.

“I-I’m not sure,” I stammered, scrambling for an explanation. “My dad’s right, I haven’t been anywhere.” I took a second to think, hoping that it was time that everyone else in the room was willing to give me. “I had a friend over yesterday, but I don’t think it could have been him. He went nuts with keeping himself clean while he was visiting. He must have washed his hands at least ten times while he was there. He did bring me some soup from Panera, though, so-”

“You think the soup might have gotten you sick?” my dad cut in and asked as if he wanted to know where on the doll a sex offender had touched me.

“I don’t know. You never have any idea what goes on behind the counter in those places. Someone might have decided to come into work sick or something.”

“With pneumonia?” Mikasa asked.

“It might not have turned into pneumonia in someone with a healthy immune system. It is possible that one of the employees could have been a carrier without knowing it,” Erwin corrected her. “However, in Eren’s case-”

“Well, at least we’ve got a source for the illness now,” my dad cut in.

“Right,” my doctor continued, trying to pick up where he left off. “Anyways, with the condition he came here in, we’re going to have to keep him on for at least another ten days. If things improve, we could prescribe him something and send him home for his own immune system to do the rest. If not, we’ll just have to keep him on longer. As of now, we’ll just keep dosing him with the antibiotics and see if things get better.”

My dad nodded and finished off the conversation with a “Well, let’s hope that they do.”

After a polite goodbye from Dr. Erwin, my last two remaining companions in the room turned to face me. “So you got infected by soup, huh?” Mikasa asked.

“I said I don’t actually know,” I protested. “I might have been.”

“Do you want to look into it?” my dad put in. “I could probably track the purchase down and see who was working that day. They might be out sick by now.”

I knitted my eyebrows in confusion. “Why would we need to do that?”

“To see if that’s where the infection actually came from. If you really want to know, it’s worth a shot.”

“You could probably sue them if you wanted to,” Mikasa added.

I stared deadenedly at my sister. “Seriously?”

“She’s right, actually,” my dad confirmed. “Eren, you could have died last night if you had gotten any worse.”

I redirected my death stare to him. “Dad, I am not suing Panera.”

“Hear me out for a second here-”

“No. Dad, listen. This person might not have even known they were a carrier. I don’t want to go after someone for doing something they might not even know they were guilty of. If it were anyone other than me, probably nothing would have happened. Besides, coming into work sick is a pretty lame thing to drag someone to court for.”

My dad inhaled to respond when the door clicked open again and someone new walked in. “Hey, brat,”a familiar voice said. “Didn’t think you would be back here so soon.”

My eyes flicked straight to the door, and there was Levi, once again dressed in his mint scrubs in all his full nursely glory. He observed the small gathering in the room, then his eyes brightened as he noticed my dad. “Dr. Jaeger. This is a pleasant surprise.”

A slight proud smile crossed my dad’s face. “It shouldn’t be a surprise. Why wouldn’t I be here after my son had a fever spike?”

_Really, Dad? Because I’m pretty sure I’m more surprised to see you here than he is._

“So dedicated of you,” Levi said before he deliberately ignored Mikasa’s existence and made his way toward me. “So. How have you been feeling?”

“Like my face is constipated,” I deadpanned in response.

The corner of his mouth twitched, and if I wasn’t possibly having some sort of delirious fever dream I would have said he had actually laughed a little at my joke.

“He almost suffocated last night,” Mikasa said, edging her way into the conversation. “It was really serious.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t, and that’s the important part,” I tossed back at her. Damn. She clearly had no intention to make light of the situation.

“And now he’s here so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Levi finished for the both of us, shooting Mikasa a quick, flippant glare that probably not even my dad failed to notice. “You threw the ER into a bit of a frenzy last night. They had to call me just to get your IV in. Apparently your brain was set to panic mode and your veins were so constricted no one could hit them.”

My first thought was something along the lines of _Well, that explains the excessive dull stabbing around the IV site._ Then my brain quickly switched to _Holy shit, Levi was handling me while I was unconscious_ , which was promptly cut off by a _Christ, Eren, this is not how normal people react to that sort of thing_.

“Well, thanks for consenting to that,” I said, glancing at the tubes sticking out of my skin. “I don’t think I would be able to move my arm if they had stabbed me any more times.”

Levi offered me a little smirk and shrugged. “It’s what they pay me for, but you’re welcome anyway.”

Levi could only stay for a few minutes before he got called out to do something else that his job demanded of him. Shortly after, Mikasa left for the bathroom in the corner, presumably to clean herself of any Levi-residue that had been transferred through the air. My dad took the opportunity to point out to me that Levi “seemed like a nice guy” even though “he still wasn’t quite what he expected me to go for.” Dying of embarrassment seemed like a likely prospect for me right then, despite the fact that there was no one else in the room. Aside from that, I wasn’t sure whether my dad actually approved of Levi or just enjoyed knowing that the nurse admired him so much. Thankfully, that conversation ended when Mikasa re-entered the room and it never made a comeback for the rest of the visit.

Neither of them left until visiting hours ran out. My dad made a few quick trips out of the room to pick me up some things to eat in order to stave off the necessity for hospital food as long as he could. Petra came back in every once in a while, just as she had promised, and we made a bit of small talk while my dad and sister were out. She worked under Dr. Erwin’s supervision, just like Levi. She and four other nurses in the staff worked under him, nearly all of them freshly qualified. Although Erwin was their official supervisor, they had pretty much adopted Levi as their leader. He was still just an LPN, but the whole hospital knew he was skilled enough to take on just about any nursing job that was required of him. That, at least, explained why they had asked him to place my IV out of every other higher-titled nurse in the hospital that they could have asked for.

Once I was alone in my room again, Levi came back for a slightly longer visit than before. Things were exponentially more comfortable without my dad there to humiliate me or Mikasa to breathe down our necks. We talked for almost half an hour, then Levi had to get called back out onto the floor for some medical emergency or another.

Despite the fact that I can’t stand overnight stays in hospitals, I slept relatively well after he left.

 

* * *

 

The first day in Trost wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately, it was the only day that wasn’t too bad.

I spent my time lounging around in my room for the most part, watching reruns on TV and feeling generally too exhausted to do much else. Nights were infinitely worse after the first one, since I had two alternating night nurses, one of whom was deftly quiet and took every precaution not to wake me up, and another who was ungainly as fuck and apparently blind unless the lights were switched on. He woke me up at least four times the second night, and after that I was never able to sleep properly again, since I would spend the whole night dreading the revelation of which nurse would be tending to me next.

Mikasa’s visits were cut shorter and shorter as the weekend ran out and she was forced to return to spending seven hours a day in school, actually having a life. On the other hand, my dad stopped in surprisingly often to catch the last few dregs of visiting hours after work. Most of the time he brought Mikasa with him. Armin came in to see me a few times as well, and apologized profusely during every single visit for giving me diseased soup, even though I had told him repeatedly that I didn’t blame him for what happened.

My visitors brought me a few books and movies to keep myself busy with, as well as my laptop, just in case my tutor decided that it was a good idea to continue my homeschooling while my respiratory system healed up. (Spoiler alert: he did.) Petra gave me the hospital wifi password, and that certainly remedied some of the misery that the hospital stay was subjecting me to.

Dr. Erwin had said I might be able to go home after ten days, as long as my symptoms remained under control. However, once I was off the IV antibiotics and spending one last day at the hospital to confirm that I wouldn’t die, my fever started spiking again within a few hours. So, naturally, I was plugged back in and it was decided that I was nowhere near ready to go yet.

The stay extended from ten days into twelve, then fourteen, then sixteen. Once again, I was trapped inside and stuck watching the seasons change through a window glass. I was itching to go outside and relive my October, to taste the air as it slowly turned frosty and the crunch of fallen leaves gave way to frost and ice. I wanted to feel the autumn fade into winter the way I had felt it reach its greatest colorful potential. I couldn’t complain to anyone about it, though. As far as the hospital staff was concerned, I was just another sick patient. I had to be kept inside, where everything was safe and sterile, until they were unanimously sure I was healthy enough to go outside again. It wasn’t their job to care about people’s selfish desires or opinions.

But Levi made an effort to understand me anyway.

He wasn’t my nurse for that particular stay, since he had his classes to deal with five out of seven days a week. But that minor setback sure as hell didn’t stop him from trying to come in and bother me at every opportunity. I didn’t know how much free time he had when he was on the job. Probably not much, since from what he told me his abilities had left him in the highest demand out of everyone on Dr. Erwin’s nursing staff. Somehow he still managed to come in and bother me for a few minutes every day that he happened to be there. Most of the time we joked around with each other, tossing a few casual insults back and forth, him asking me if I felt like throwing up anytime soon and me responding with some poop-related comment that would always get a rise out of him. I had finally figured out how to get Levi to break his composure. I forgot to mention that, didn’t I?

Poop jokes. The answer was poop jokes.

It was pretty ironic, for someone who seemed as serious and professional as he did all the time. But when I thought it over, he was unprofessional with me already. It wasn’t professional for a nurse like him to be fraternizing with one of his patients. However, Dr. Handsome hadn’t fired him from the staff yet, so his abilities as a nurse probably outweighed whatever personal problems he had with him. That was the answer he gave me when I asked him about it, anyway.

Literally. That was what he said. The conversation went something like this.

“Hey, Levi, aren’t there supposed to be restrictions for patient-caretaker interaction or something like that?”

“Yeah. Relationships are supposed to be strictly professional.”

“Do you think might tie into why Erwin didn’t assign you as my nurse this time?”

“Listen, brat. What that guy knows about my personal life is kept completely confidential. He only knows as much as I tell him. He knows I’m friends with a few kids from group therapy, and that’s it. Besides, he hasn’t fired me yet, so my abilities as a nurse probably outweigh whatever personal problems Dr. Handsome has with me.”

That was the way most of our conversations went, actually. Short, to the point, and always punctuated by some smart-ass comment from his end, ending with him leaving the room to wherever else on the floor he was needed.

And he called my oncologist Dr. Handsome too. What a small world.

Over the seemingly endless onslaught of days that I spent under IV drips and fluorescent lights, I tried to teach myself to stay in control around him. Every time he walked into the room, I forced my pulse to stop picking up, hoping that eventually my circulatory system would learn to stay steady on its own. I made myself ignore my skipping heart and fluttering stomach so maybe, eventually, it would feel like there was no reaction to his presence at all. It was harder for me to keep my cover in a hospital, after all. With monitors on me at all times, he would probably see if something changed. I didn’t know what the hell any of those colored lines meant, but Levi Ackerman the Licensed Practical Nurse definitely knew a thing or two about EKG reading. It took days of practice and dozens of encounters to get it right, but I never stopped trying. I figured that I only needed to try and fail at it at least a thousand times in order to make it stick.

I wouldn’t do it to myself anymore. I had decided long ago that I had to stop. I had to get my feelings under control before something slipped out and I dragged Levi into my dull, depressing world of disease and loneliness and impending death.

He didn’t deserve someone like me. He didn’t need to be subjected to something like a relationship with me.

He was too good for that.

 

* * *

 

Finally, on day eighteen of the longest fucking November in my recent memory, my fever broke.

My sinuses had been gradually draining out over the days I spent in Trost. The cement clog in my nostrils softened into silicone, then loosened enough for me to breathe through at least one side of my nose at a time. I stopped hacking up fluid every time I coughed, it no longer hurt to fill my lungs with air and I finally felt like I was in an acceptable state of living again. I still coughed and sneezed and couldn’t do much more physical activity beyond walking around the floor when my room started to feel a little cagey, but it was a far cry from the critical state I had been admitted in.

When Petra finally read a normal temperature after she took the metal thermometer probe out of my mouth, it was like seeing a lighthouse beacon after drifting out at sea for as long as I had been sitting in the hospital. The end was in sight.

Levi was the one to give me the good news when it was finally time to give it.

“Afternoon, brat. I just had a talk with Erwin,” he said as he walked through my door without permission for the countless-eth time. “I’ve got some news I think you’re gonna want to hear.”

I sat up in bed from where I was slumped into the pillows with my laptop on my legs. News. That was definitely something I hadn’t heard in a long time. “What is it?”

“Since your fever’s stayed down for a full twenty-four hours and you’re breathing considerably easier, he thinks you might be going free soon.” He glanced at my IV flow controls which Petra had fixed up only a few minutes earlier and hovered his fingers over the buttons for a second before pulling them away and turning to me. “Thought that with the amount of complaining you’ve been doing lately, you would probably want to know as soon as you could. It’s pretty fantastic, right?”

Sometimes I thought he missed being my nurse.

“Are you serious?” I asked, unable to hide my excitement.

“Am I ever not?”

“This is great. Is he going to tell me himself?”

“Don’t know. Probably.”

A grin spread across my face as I pushed my laptop off of my legs and flicked the lid shut. I would be getting out soon. If Levi was telling me the truth, then the one thing that I had been wanting consistently for the past almost-three weeks would finally be coming my way. “When? Is he busy? How much does he have to do before he can come in and talk to me?”

“Hey. Slow down, eager-pants,” he said, holding up his hands in a back-the-fuck-up gesture. “You think I have the guy’s schedule memorized or something?”

“I-I don’t know, you work for him, I thought maybe you might... I don’t know, know a thing or two about how much he does in a day?”

“Well, the doctor is a busy guy, and he only ever lets me in on what he’ll need my participation for. That’s how most people are with their work schedules. It’s grown-up stuff. You’ll understand it when you get a job.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not that much older than me, Levi.”

“I’m older-than-you enough to have a job cleaning bedpans for people your age, so I’m still gonna have to call myself an adult around you.”

“And still give yourself permission to refer to me as 'brat' all the time, I’m guessing.”

“Bingo.”

I sighed and picked at the peeling edge of the paper wristband that I’d had on for longer than I cared to remember. “Even though you guys haven’t discussed it, about how long do you think it’ll be until I get out?”

“Not sure. Another day, maybe two. It all depends on how your immune system decides to behave when we take you off the IV drip.”

“Oh. Okay,” I said, a little disappointedly. I didn’t know what I had been expecting. It wasn’t like the staff would just be letting me walk out the doors. In fact, if I actually did that I would probably be back in there sooner than I would ever have planned to be.

“Besides, we’re going to have to get your strength back up a little bit before you go out and face the world again.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Well, it shouldn’t be all that much of a surprise to you, but you haven’t been very in all your time here,” he replied matter-of-factly. “For the entire first week you were barely able to get out of bed without choking on your own fluids, and even once all of that was over and done with you still didn’t do a lot of moving around. Chances are you’ve experienced some minor atrophy while you were waiting for your sinuses to unclog.”

“So what am I supposed to do now? Am I going into physical therapy or something?”

“No. Nothing that intensive, I don’t think. Dr. Handsome will probably just have you get a little exercise in your last few days to get your body used to moving again.”

Once again, I couldn’t help smiling a little at his use of the mutual nickname. “What sort of things do you think he has in mind?”

“Probably just having you walk laps around the floor, maybe take the stairs and get yourself something from the cafe. Just normal, everyday stuff.” He paused for a second before adding, “He might have you take a jog around the track or use the pool for a bit.”

“The pool?” I asked, not sure that I had heard him correctly.

“Yeah, if he thinks you’re well enough.” Levi cocked his head and looked quizzically at me. “Did you not know that we had one here?”

“No, I did, I’ve just never seen it before.”

I had been through Trost Regional Hospital far too many times to have never smelled the chlorine in one concentrated area of the first floor, or to have missed the scattered signs hung by the elevators that had the word _pool_ spelled out in bolded plastic letters. Of course I knew there was a pool. I had just never actually seen it, swam in it, or been shown any concrete proof that it existed other than occasionally smelling the chemicals. That was probably because I hadn’t needed much water-based rehabilitation for most of my stays in Trost. Floating in the water after a chemo treatment would have put me at an increased risk for dizzy spells and vomiting. The stitches I was left with after my liver surgery couldn’t be soaked or submerged for at least two weeks, and I had to avoid strenuous activity for even longer to keep from screwing with my muscle tissue’s healing process, according to Dr. Erwin’s instructions. Since the opportunity to see the pool had never arisen for me, I had sort of forgotten its existence.

“Really? With the amount of time you claim to have been going here, I thought you might have been down there at least once.” He paused for a second, then said, “You’ve never been rehabilitated before, have you?”

“No,” I replied, sounding more disappointed than I felt. “The last extended stay I had here was because of my surgery, and Dr. Erwin never mentioned anything about it. You know, because of the stitches and everything else.”

“Right,” Levi said with a small nod. “He might recommend it now, since you weren’t cut open this time around. It might be good to keep your fever down, too. Most of it depends on whether or not he thinks your body will react to the drop in temperature, but they spend a lot on the heating bills to keep it warm in there.”

“So, have you ever been...” I started, but an image of him soaking wet and shirtless clawed its way into my mind from the deep recesses where I had hidden my memories of the first party at Jean’s place. I had to stop, force it back and start over again. “Have you ever been swimming there?”

“Yeah, once or twice,” he responded disinterestedly. “The staff will sometimes go in before or after their shifts. The hospital also employs specially trained people who take care of aquatic rehabilitation. Some of the nursing staff is qualified, and sometimes they need extra people on hand in case anything happens. I’ve been in both situations.” He laughed a little to himself. “This job can get pretty interesting sometimes.”

“Hey, Levi-” I was going to say more, but at the same time Levi glanced at the clock and cut my words short.

“Sorry to cut you off, Eren, but I have other patients to tend to right now. I’ve got to get going.” He turned towards the door and reached for the handle.

“Can I just ask you something before you go?”

He stopped halfway through the door and glanced back at me. “Can you make it quick?”

I nodded vigorously. “If I do end up going to the pool, would I be by myself or would someone be there with me to... I don’t know, instruct me or make sure I don’t drown or something?”

Levi shrugged. “Not sure, brat. I’ll talk to Erwin about it when I get the chance. I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay,” I said quietly. Levi disappeared into the hallway and the door swung shut behind him.

Just as he had predicted, Dr. Erwin came in to visit me later that evening. My dad had stopped by to catch the end of visiting hours again, and he showed up just in time to join the conversation. Dr. Erwin gave us the good news that I was almost healthy enough to be discharged. I still needed to spend another day or two in the Trost Regional staff’s care, if only to make sure I wouldn’t die of a fever spike the day I walked out the door.

Then, seemingly following a script that Levi had given him, the doctor went into the method of things, informing my dad that my inactivity over the past almost-three weeks might have resulted in some slight muscular atrophy, and it would be a good idea for me to get a little exercise and re-accustom my body to physical activity before they released me back into the wild. He told me that I could talk to Petra about a few physical therapy practices that I could use to rebuild my strength, I could take a walk around the jogging track they had in the courtyard in the middle of the complex, and, of course, the pool was always open if I was interested. I told him that I was.

The conversation didn’t last much longer than that. Just a few details about the release procedure, slowly weaning me off the antibiotics to make sure my immune system could manage on its own, going over insurance payments, that sort of thing. My dad said he’d stop by the next day to drop off my swim trunks, then visiting hours were just about up and he had to leave before the staff came around to kick him out.

I stared up at my ceiling late into the night, lost in the hum of the IV flow control and my own thoughts. In all honesty, swimming might not have been the best idea in my current state. As weak as I was, it was entirely possible that I could drown the second my feet could no longer touch the bottom. The last time I had even been in water over my ankles was at Jean’s party back in July. And even then, I never did much actual swimming. Dr. Erwin never mentioned whether I would be going on my own or have one of those specialized personal trainers that Levi had been talking about to walk me through the rehabilitation.

Then my stupid, sleep-foggy brain suddenly decided to say, _I wouldn’t mind having Levi swimming around with me. Especially if he doesn’t wear a shirt._

Thankfully,  my night nurse came in, adjusted my flow, and told me that if I was having a hard time falling asleep he could give me something for it. I decided it was time for my brain to shut up for the night and accepted the offer.

 

* * *

 

I woke up the next morning to find a Trader Joe’s bag sitting on the chair next to my bed with a note in my dad’s scribbly doctor handwriting stapled to it. When I dragged it over to my bed to look at the contents, I found my swim trunks, along with a small assortment of snack foods that I immediately knew would be my saving grace from hospital fodder for whatever was left of my stay. With a slight smile on my face, I tugged my dad’s note off of the bag and went about deciphering his handwriting.

_I would have said hi when I came in, but you were out like a light! Hope you find these in good spirits when you wake up. I’ll have to work late tonight, so sorry I can’t come and visit you. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow afternoon to take you home (hopefully!!!). Say hi to Levi for me._

_Dad_

I heaved an attitude-heavy sigh as soon as my eyes crossed the last line. The piece of paper wound up folded up into what could have been a shitty origami lotus and tossed back into the bag along with my contraband snacks. _I appreciate the thought Dad, but no. Just... no._

Petra came in after not too long, and I recounted yesterday’s conversation with Dr. Erwin for her. Her first move was to explain a few pilates-style moves that I could use to re-strengthen my muscles without having to get out of my bed. I let her go on for a while, but then cut in after a bit and mentioned the jogging track. After a few minutes of bartering, she agreed to let me go out later in the afternoon when my IV would be cut down from its current already-lowered rate. The pool would be an entirely different issue. She told me that she would have to go to Dr. Erwin about that one. I had already talked with him about it, and I knew that she would most likely be getting the exact same answer as I had.

The rest of the day passed by in pretty much the same way as the other ones had. I had my laptop in front of me for most of it. First it was to read and annotate a chapter for history, then to work on an essay for English, then to finish up an Algebra assignment that had been two-thirds done for almost a day. I got bored with homeschool work after a few hours and moved on to the black hole that is Tumblr. Late in the afternoon, once my IV flow rate had been next to nothing for nearly three hours, Petra came in to disconnect me (though she left the PICC line in my arm just in case) and lead me out to the courtyard. I spent a while wandering around there, but it didn’t take very much time standing out in the cold for me to get tired and want to go back inside. Petra came after me with a sweet, sympathetic smile on her face and led me back in, as if she had been expecting it to happen all along. Once we were back, she let me know that Dr. Erwin had agreed to the whole pool proposal, so long as I had someone to supervise and instruct me. He would send someone my way as soon as he could.

After a few more hours passed by in the same way that the preceding ones had, I decided it was time to do something else. I wished desperately that I had brought my writing journal with me. Then again, I hadn’t exactly had a lot of time to pack my bags before I had been swiftly escorted out of the house while struggling to get my lungs to expand. I probably should have been thankful that Mikasa hadn’t exposed my hiding place behind the dresser (since at this point I was pretty sure she knew where it was). But I still felt bad about leaving the pages untouched for so long. My breakdown in October was the last time I had even looked at the sorry little thing. And before that point, I could only begin to guess how long it had been in between entries.

I closed out of my browser and opened a word document. If my usual medium wasn’t available, I could improvise. And if I really wanted that badly to have this in my notebook, I could copy it down later. But for now, my computer would have to suffice.

It took a while for the ideas to come, but eventually they started flowing. Levi. My last entry. Hanji’s last writing assignment about what each kid in the support group looked forward to most while held captive in the hospital.

_Living in a white plaster box was never what Levi had wanted from his life. But that was what people said was good for him, and in their opinion, he was in no position to complain. There was a certain sense of safety that he gained from him being in that closed space, with the wide plates of glass that let him see what the outside world was like. The vistas that he saw through the window were all he knew of it. Those and the books and movies that he used to bide his time while he waited for the doctors to tell him it was safe for him to go outside. But until that day, Levi would simply have to live with his challenges._

_The disorder had taken his mother, then his father not long afterwards. The doctors who had taken him in after their departure from the living world said that it was because they had used themselves up too recklessly. If he fooled with the outside world in the same way they had, one day his white blood cells would start combusting. Then his days would be numbered, and there would be no going back. So the doctors had closed him into a clean little space, sealed off from the outside with not a single pathogen to be seen._

_It had been_ \- I took a second to find a suitable age for Levi to have been shut up in his fictional confinement. - _twelve years since he had been locked away. In all that time, he had grown up, had begun yearning to leave the little space he had been forced to call home for so long. At twenty, he was more than old enough to tell the doctors that he didn’t want to continue with this cruel method of treatment. He wanted to live his life for all it was worth, and if it cost him that very commodity in the end, then so be it. At least he would have used everything he had while it was available. But this wasn’t a possible thing for Levi. It wasn’t what his parents would have wanted. It wasn’t something that the doctors would encourage. He had a responsibility to keep himself alive._

_He had a responsibility to do as he was told, no matter what he lost in the process._

_Levi had a responsibility_ -

The click of the door latch harmonized with the small percussion orchestra coming from my keyboard.

I ripped my gaze away from my laptop screen and turned toward the door. It was pushed open to the bare minimum that a person needed to fit themselves through, and Levi slipped into my room. My brain skipped a little at his sudden appearance. I was just writing about him. Or someone with his name, anyway. It was an odd coincidence.

“Hey, brat,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” I said instinctively. “No different from this morning, really.”

“That’s good. You’re not getting any worse, at least.”

I shrugged. “I’ve been completely off the antibiotics for almost six hours. There’s no way I could be getting any better.”

“That’s not always the case. But I suppose you never really know much about anything until you try it.” Levi made his way to the end of my bed and leaned against the footboard.

“What are you doing here so late?” I asked. “Aren’t you normally ending your shift right about now?”

“Dr. Handsome’s letting me take a few hours of overtime tonight,” Levi replied. “He mentioned that you might need a bit of company.”

There was context there that I was definitely missing. At least, I hoped that the context I was missing wasn’t what it sounded like. “What does that mean?”

Levi looked at me and cocked his head. “Did he not tell you or something? I really thought you would have been the first to know.”

“Know about what?”

“I guess you don’t, then,” Levi said. “He’s letting you go to the pool tonight for rehabilitation.”

“Oh. Yeah.” I remembered the conversation I’d had with the man literally a day earlier. “He told me about that. I just didn’t understand what you said about...”

“It’s alright. Far from the first time it’s happened,” Levi said casually. “He would have let you go sometime sooner, but there were a lot of variables he had to deal with. First of all, you weren’t taken off of your drip until today. Then he had to worry about how your lungs would hold up, whether or not you might pick something up from the water and who he would be able to send with you. He just waited it out until the time was right. It just so happened that today I was willing to take overtime, you’re still breathing and the pool was just cleaned this afternoon.”

“Hm. Good thinking,” I said.

“Well, that’s Erwin for you. If there’s anything the man’s good for, it’s planning.” Levi paused, then added, “And, of course, treating cancer and everything else.”

“So, how is this going to work? Don’t I need an escort or a physical therapist or something like that?”

“I’ll be going with you. So, where’d you put your trunks?”

For the briefest of seconds, my brain lost all its ability to function.

“W-what?”

Levi turned to me, his face looking even more deadened than usual. “I’m going to be swimming with you to make sure your body doesn’t give out and you don’t drown,” he said. “Now, about those swim trunks.”

He’d said it twice already, but I was still having a hard time processing his words. He was going with me? As in, he was going to be _in_ the pool, _swimming_ with me?

_Without a shirt?_

My palms started to sweat, then I finally managed to drag my brain back to reality. No. That couldn’t be what he meant. He was probably just going to lead me down, make sure I didn’t get lost on my way there or back, then sit on the sidelines and watch while I swam, the same way that Petra had stood off to the side and waited for me to tire myself out while I was out on the jogging track that afternoon. And there was no way in hell that I would get anywhere trying to impress him with my shirtless appearance. He was a nurse. He probably saw more people naked than I ever would in my lifetime, most likely quite a few that were better-looking than me.

Me, with my ribs and pasty skin and that stupid red scar stuck right in the middle of everything.

“Th-they’re in a bag that my dad brought me this morning. I’ll go find them,” I stammered out, pushing the thoughts of my own inadequacy to the back of my mind.

“Alright. You’ll probably want to get changed before you go. The locker rooms down there are pretty nasty-looking, even after getting cleaned,” Levi advised flatly.

I stopped somewhere in the middle of sorting through all the crap that my family had brought me over the course of my stay. “And walk through the entire hospital with my shirt off? No, thanks. I’d rather get more pieces taken out of my liver.”

“I didn’t mean walking around in just your shorts, dipshit. I meant putting them on before we go, putting something over them, then leaving your clothes on the bleachers where they won’t be soaking in other people’s sweat. It’s what I’m doing, and I’d say it wouldn’t hurt for you to do the same.”

I balked again just as I happened upon my swim trunks. _I'_ _m just going to forget you said that._ “Okay. Just give me a minute. I’ll be right back out.”

With that, I went into the bathroom and locked the door between us. I took only a minute or so to actually get changed into my trunks, but for some reason I felt it necessary to stop for a moment and stare at myself in the mirror. I looked the same as always, pale, dark circles under my eyes, brown hair messy because I hadn’t felt up to combing it into a presentable appearance just to spend another day in the hospital. My nose was a little red, but other than that, there wasn’t much color to my face. If I laid still in the middle of a street, people could have probably mistaken me for a dead body. I could only imagine how much worse it must have been when I didn’t have my shirt on to cover up my prominent ribs and spine. After about thirty seconds of staring, I finally forced myself to forget about it and go back out into my room.

The pool was pretty far away from my room. I was staying up on the fifth floor of the hospital, a section of the residential units that was dedicated almost solely to adolescent patients. If Trost Regional Hospital was good for anything, it was setting up the overnight patients so they didn’t feel awkward around the others who were staying on the same floor as them. The pool was down on the lowest level of the hospital, save for the basement. It was the only place where something like it could be placed without seriously intruding on the floor below it.

The room that housed it was huge and smelled of hot chlorinated mist. Levi was right when he said that I wouldn’t have to worry about exposure if I decided to go swimming. It had to be at least seventy degrees in there. Massive fluorescent lamps hung from the ceiling, probably bright enough to light it up to look like midday if enough of them were on. But it was late, and we were the first to be using the pool after it was cleaned. Levi only turned on enough of the lights to have reasonable visibility. The lights set into the walls of the pool glowed brighter than the few lit ones in the ceiling, casting the white cinderblock walls in a flickering blue glow. The pool itself was pretty decently sized. It wasn’t anything exceptional, not olympic-sized like a YMCA. The thing was only a little bigger than Jean’s.

“The entire place has been sanitized, so we shouldn’t have to worry about you picking up  anything else from the area,” Levi said as he walked along the stainless-steel bleachers on the far side of the pool, searching for a suitable spot. “It would suck if you got sick again just as you were starting to get better, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah. I’m already going insane from being here as long as I have,” I replied, following closely behind. I picked out a spot that seemed to have dried off a little better than the others after the janitors’ power-washing. “Here. This spot looks alright.”

Levi crossed over to give his approval. “Looks like I’ve been teaching you well, brat.”

We dropped the towels we had brought with us on the bleachers, and I had to take a breath before reaching for the hem of my shirt. A little thrill of insecurity ran through my nerves. I didn’t want to do this in front of him, but we had already come so far. Besides, he had seen me in situations far more compromising than this one. I still had to turn away from him and pretend he wasn’t there to be able to get my clothes off. I steeled myself, kicked my sneakers off and pulled my shirt over my head.

I turned back around to place my clothes and shoes next to my towel, then proceeded to nearly die of a heart attack when I looked up from the bleachers. With little to no warning, Levi had ditched his slip-on vans and started peeling off his mint-green scrubs shirt. Hot _damn_. How long had it been since Jean’s party... four months since I had seen him like this? I couldn’t have gotten the image out of my head if I had tried, but watching him take his shirt off here was like seeing him for the first time all over again. The smooth skin, taut muscles, the gentle curve of his torso between his hips and ribcage- _fuck_ I wanted to touch him so badly.

_No. No. Stop it. You are not going to do this right now._

The little black wing on his shoulder seemed to flutter a little as he moved his arm to toss his shirt onto the bleachers next to the towels. He went for his pants next, and I panicked for a brief second about him being into skinny dipping.

“What are you doing?” I impulsively asked.

“Going swimming,” he replied. “We’re standing by a pool, if you haven’t noticed.” His mint green pants had joined his shirt, and to my serious relief he had been wearing his plain black swim trunks underneath them. I stood there, shivering in spite of the warm mist floating in the air as I watched him travel around the edge of the pool to the deepest end, then extend his hands above his head and launch himself off of the concrete edge. His body went into a graceful arc before slicing the water and disappearing with barely even a splash. I ran to the edge and watched his rippling shadow as it traveled below the surface, gliding towards the shallow end where I stood. His head breached the surface of the water, and he flicked his hair out of his face and ran his fingers back through it to push it away from his forehead. He fixed me with a curious look. “You gonna just stand there, or are you coming in, brat?”

“I-I am, I just...” I stuttered, scrambling for an excuse.

“The water’s perfectly fine, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

I took the opportunity and ran with it. “You sure?”

“Have I ever lied to you before, Eren?”

My name drifted through the mist around us, and that was all the reassurance I needed. I drew closer to the ladder at the side of the pool and carefully lowered myself down into the water. The temperature was more than fine. It was like dipping my legs into May. I let go of the ladder to turn myself around and immediately slipped below the surface. In a second, Levi was there. His hands had fixed around my forearms and he was pulling me into the shallows. My feet brushed the tiles at the bottom of the pool, and I quickly regained my footing.

“Right,” he said as soon as I was upright again. “I had a few exercises in mind that would probably be helpful in undoing some of your muscular atrophy. Granted, they are a little ridiculous and you’re probably going to get sick of them after a while. It’s nothing essential, though. We can stop whenever you want, okay?”

“Okay,” I replied automatically.

The exercises were no different in my own opinion from the way that Levi had described them; they were stupid and I wanted to stop almost as soon as I had started. But, of course, it was for my own good. I put up with the lunges and one-leg balancing and feeling like an old lady practicing her aquacise moves for as long as I could. After about half an hour, I told him that I was finished, and he didn’t protest. We spent the rest of the time paddling around,both of us left to our own devices and ignoring each other’s existence.

I lasted a little longer swimming than I did when I was out on the track. It was probably the difference in temperature that kept my body from giving out so quickly. All the same, I felt too tired to keep going after about an hour in the water. Levi climbed out along with me, and we sat next to each other on the bleachers while we dried off, neither of us saying much. He told me to wrap myself up in my towel so I wouldn’t get cold, even though the temperature in the room was nowhere near low enough for that to even be a concern. He had his own towel thrown over his shoulders, drops of water still glistening on his skin. I thought about wrapping him up in his towel, too, just to piss him off, but I figured he wasn’t in the mood for it right then.

I sat a row behind Levi in the bleachers and watched him while he ruffled his hair with his towel to dry it off and took out his phone to flick through his messages from that day. I didn’t see much in regard to what kind of social life he had, since I had once again placed all my focus on the tiny wing on his shoulder blade. The feathers fluttered delicately with every movement of his arm. I noticed that the ink was still clear and black, as if the tattoo were still fresh after being ingrained into his skin for... I wasn’t entirely sure how long. He had said he had gotten it back when he had graduated high school. My closest guess was that he was seventeen or eighteen. But he had become a qualified nurse between then and now, and as far as I knew, there was no way around the schooling for that. As the thoughts ran steadily through my mind, I was tempted to reach out and run my fingers along the edge of that beautiful little wing. Maybe if I touched it I could find out its secrets that Levi couldn’t tell me with his voice.

But of course, I couldn’t do that. So I was left with the next best thing.

“What’s the story behind your tattoo?”

“Hm?” Levi looked up from his phone and turned around to face me.

“The wing,” I said as calmly as I could. “I’ve mentioned it before, but... you never really told me anything about it.”

Levi let out a small, breathy noise that might have been a laugh if it were coming from anyone else. “Why are you so interested?”

“Don’t know. It just makes me wonder.”

“It’s not an interesting story. You’ll probably lose interest after a while.”

It was about then that I realized that Levi wasn’t the only one that was good at seeing through the people around him. I might not have had any skills when it came to anyone else, but he was different. In all the time I had spent watching his every move, I had learned a thing or two about reading him. It was the only reason why I suspected that he was dodging me.

“You don’t really know until you try, Levi.”

Yeah, it was kind of a low blow, throwing his own philosophy back at him. But I didn’t know how else to go about it. He was hard to get through to as it was.

He turned back to me again, and I eased myself one level lower onto the same bench as him. “Go ahead and tell me. I’ll be interested,” I insisted. “I promise.”

Levi sighed. “Okay, fine,” he conceded. “I was... I was in a bit of a bad place around the time. I was seventeen years old, things were messy with my life, and I was involved in a lot of things that I probably shouldn’t have been getting into.”

 _Three years_ , I silently noted as I nodded my encouragement for him to continue. I wondered when his birthday was, since he had graduated so early. Maybe he fell short of the cutoff date or something like that.

And what was that supposed to mean, his life was messy? Levi seemed like one of the most put-together people that I knew. It was impossible to imagine him like that; feeling disordered, lost and confused, not old enough to understand life yet but too old for anyone to bother explaining it to him.

And what did he mean, things he shouldn’t have been getting into?

“I happened to have a bit of cash to blow, and I had been thinking about getting a tattoo for a few years. Mainly it was just a ‘fuck you’ my dad, to spite him or some stupid shit like that...”

He sounded like there was more that he wanted to say, but he cut himself short and redirected his sentence. “I was feeling trapped by everything that was going on in my life, and after I got out of high school, I felt like it was a new beginning for me. There were so many directions that I could go, and no one would be able to stop me if I didn’t let them. I felt like I would finally have a chance to set myself free. So when I showed up at the tattoo shop, and I saw this design... I wasn’t even thinking, I just...”

“You wanted to get it because of what it meant to you,” I put in when his words started to stagger. “I get it. You were finally making a life for yourself with no restrictions. You were free. Wings are supposed to be a symbol of freedom, right?”

“Yeah. Wings are a symbol of freedom,” he finished. Then the conversation ended and we were sitting in silence all over again.

I pulled my towel tighter around my shoulders and hunched over my legs. The quiet was starting to get uncomfortable. Words floated in my head and welled up in the back of my throat, but none of them were eloquent enough to make it out of my mouth. I wanted to say something more. There was something wrong with the empty, emotionless way Levi stared across the pool at the wall on the other side. I wanted to ask him what, but I knew he wouldn’t tell me. All that he had said about his tattoo only served to confuse me more. Confusion was the last thing I needed then. I wanted to help him. He seemed like he needed it. The only problem was that I could never be sure how willing he would be to accept it.

Then, just like that devastating moment with the call button, I did the only thing that I knew how to. I improvised. I stopped thinking.

I reached out and gently pressed my fingertips to Levi’s tattoo.

He didn’t give me very much of a reaction. He glanced back at me for a second, and I felt his muscles pull under his skin, but that was it. I became mesmerized by the tiny black stencilled wing stretched across his shoulder blade. I ran my fingers delicately over the tips of the sharp, extended feathers. I felt like if I imagined hard enough, it might spring up off of his skin and start fluttering, like he was some kind of half-angel brought down from heaven to take a part in my sad little life.

“We should probably be getting you back to your room,” Levi said without warning.

“Okay,” I replied.

And that was it. That was where the night ended. After that, we finished drying off, put our clothes and shoes back on and left. Levi escorted me to my room, wished me well since I wouldn’t be seeing him again until the next support group meeting, and then he was gone.

I had a hard time sleeping that night, and not just because my clumsier night nurse was the one on call. It was mostly because of the hollow, unfulfilled chasm that had opened up in my chest. I didn’t have a name for the feeling it gave me, but I knew well enough what it meant.

Once again, I had come close to doing something important, but had failed before I even knew what that something was.

 

* * *

 

I left Trost Regional Hospital the next day.

It was the biggest relief that I had ever experienced in my short, cancerous lifetime, overtaking the last time that I had been released from the hospital. My dad had volunteered to take the morning off from work (which I assumed meant he would be taking overtime in exchange) to pick me up, sign me out and take me to lunch before taking me home again. Mikasa had decided to take off from her Sunday practice to spend the time with me as well. The situation left me feeling both warm and guilty. I appreciated the time I spent with them (most of it, anyway), but at the same time it felt wrong. I felt like I was taking something from them. Like they were cutting something out of their lives in order to give it to me.

It was a feeling I had gotten before, and I had brought it up to both of them several times, but every time I did, whoever I happened to be speaking to usually put the sentiments aside and ignored them. It only made sense for me to do the same.

My dad had originally wanted me to pick out the place we would be going for lunch, since I was the one who had been subjected to the bland, mass-produced taste of Trost’s inpatient food for the last twenty days, but I told him that I was willing to go for anything that wasn’t prepackaged and heated in a microwave. Mikasa decided on going to a teriyaki place in Karanese that Jean had taken to her once, way back when in their three-month-long relationship. It was a few weeks more than that, even, but despite the impressiveness of Jean’s ability to hang onto my sister as long as he had, I wasn’t going to give him any special credit.

Staying with Jean for so long wasn’t the only shocking thing that Mikasa had done, though.

“Mikasa, what happened to your hair?” was the first thing I said when I climbed into the backseat with her.

“Do you like it?” she asked casually.

I did, actually. It wasn’t a bad look for her. It was just... short.

Really short.

“Yeah, I do. It’s great. It’s just... surprising, that’s all.”

“Thanks.” She smiled at me and pushed a strand behind her ear. It fell right back into place, because it was no longer long enough to stay where it was. The last time I had seen her, her hair had extended a few inches past her shoulders. As far as I knew, she hadn’t cut anything significant off since the surgery summer. She had been growing it out for more than a year. Now she had everything bobbed again, her hair falling in cropped, fluffy layers around her chin. It wasn’t quite a pixie cut, but it wasn’t all that far from one. The style was a little messy, a little rebellious, but in an orchestrated, intentional sort of way. I couldn’t have picked out a look more perfect for her.

I wasn’t sure why she had done it. The last few times she had cut her hair off, she had done it to sympathize with me when I lost my hair to some treatment or another. I hadn’t been subjected to the horrors of chemotherapy this time around, but I suppose that didn’t have any effect on her devotional practices. She could have had worse habits than lopping inches of her hair off every time I had a relapse.

 _Jean’s probably had his hands all over it already_ , I thought distastefully.

“Has anything interesting happened since we last saw you, Eren?” my dad asked as he pulled the Highlander out of the parking lot.

A surprising amount had. Or at least it came very close to happening. Most of it had to do with introspection, observation, and a whole lot of staring at a shirtless guy. The entire experience had gone in so many directions, and it was all a little difficult to explain.

“Not really.”

“Hmph,” my dad replied. “That seems a little disappointing. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, though. I mean, how much can happen when you’re sitting in a hospital room, anyways?”

 _A lot more than you could ever imagine, Dad_ , I silently told him as he stepped on the gas to catch up with traffic. A few minutes short of an hour later, we were sitting in the appointed Teriyaki restaurant, and I was practically inhaling the sauce-drenched shrimp and steak combo that I had ordered.

I took a break from stuffing food into my mouth to ask Mikasa, “So when did the hair thing happen?”

“Just yesterday, actually,” she said in a non-rushed, understandable manner, unlike the way in which my words had come out. “I’d been planning on it for almost a week. I mean, I’d been thinking about getting a haircut for a while anyway, and you were in the hospital, so I figured I might as well.”

“But I didn’t lose my hair this time around,” I pointed out. “They didn’t even give me any chemo. My cells weren’t the problem. It was my immune system, remember?”

Mikasa shrugged and squashed a chunk of raw salmon between her chopsticks. “I know, but I wanted to do it anyway.”

“Why?”

“Eren.”

“Mikasa, I know why you did it every other time before this one, so why this time?”

She sighed and gave up trying to pass off the haircut as her own idea. “I’ve been really busy, okay?” she said. “I was having a hard time keeping up with everything going on at Trost. I hardly ever came into visit you last week, and I wasn’t sure if they had picked something else up, or if they decided to give you a new treatment, or-”

“Hey, it’s okay. I get it,” I said, cutting her short before she made me feel any worse about prying.

“You do keep a pretty packed schedule, honey,” my dad said to her. “Maybe you should spend a few days in the hospital, too. You could catch up on your sleep.”

I couldn’t even help it that time. I laughed, a quiet, throaty giggle that I had just narrowly failed to restrain. I didn’t miss the proud smile that tugged at my dad’s face before I quickly recomposed myself by asking, “You haven’t been sleeping?”

“Not to a problematic degree,” Mikasa said quickly. “I’ve just been doing research for a history project and I’ve been staying up a little extra the past few nights.”

“A little? I came home at eleven-thirty on Thursday, and you hadn’t even showered yet,” my dad mentioned.

“Even if it is bad, it’s just for now. It’ll be back to normal once I finish.”

I shook my head and swallowed the wad of shrimp in my mouth. “Mikasa, how do you even manage your life?”

“Very skillfully,” she said. Then her phone lit up on the tabletop and started vibrating its way toward the edge. Jean’s smiling face glowed on the screen, right next to Mikasa’s with his fingers tangled in her hair in a picture they had taken together at one of Marco’s Bad Movie Nights. My sister glanced down and quickly picked it up. “Sorry. I’ve got to get this.”

“What does he want?” I asked with more hostility than I intended to give off.

“I sent him a picture of my new hair this morning,” she replied as she scooted out of the booth.

“You mean he hasn’t seen it yet?”

“Nope.” She started away from the table, talking to me over he shoulder. “I should probably see what he wants.” Then she wandered off with her phone held to her ear.

My dad and I were both pretty well-matched in being unsure how to act in a social situation. We tried to carry on the conversation without her. That didn’t work out all that well, so the table gradually descended into awkward silence. Both of us made an occasional effort to break it, but we failed over and over again until finally, Mikasa came back to the table.

The first thing she did was shove her phone savagely into her pocket. Then she sank limply into the seat next to my dad.

“What happened?” he said right away. Concern overrode every single emotion written into his face. Dad mode had been activated.

“Nothing important,” Mikasa said listlessly, grabbing another chunk of fish and biting into it as if it were the throat of the entire male race.

“Did Jean get you upset?” my dad continued. When Mikasa didn’t answer, he kept on trying. “Did he say something to you? Come on. Tell me, sweetie. What did he say?”

Mikasa never did tell either of us exactly what Jean said. But she did give us the gist of it.

“He didn’t like my haircut.”

It didn’t sound like that bad of a situation. But let’s face it. This was Jean we were talking about. So I got Mikasa to elaborate and vilify her boyfriend as much as she wanted to.

The explanation ended up a lot lengthier than the one she had initially given.

“He’s mad at me because I didn’t tell him I was planning on cutting my hair. Which is a total lie, because I’ve mentioned it to him at least twice before. Then that turned into a whole other argument about me needing his approval to make stupid decisions like this. Which I don’t, because I am perfectly capable of using my own judgement. And now he’s pissed off because I allegedly decided to change something major about myself without giving him any kind of warning, and because my hair was one of the things about me that he liked best... and that on its own pisses me off, because if he was just with me because of my looks, then this is not a relationship that I want to be in anyway...”

Then Mikasa jammed her straw into her mouth and fell silent. Neither my dad nor I tried to re-initiate the conversation flow. There was really no easy way to respond to that. The awkwardness was probably the only thing that spurred my sister to keep going.

"So I hung up on him, because I wasn’t up for listening to him bitch about how I’m not pretty enough for him anymore. He’s probably still going to ask me out later today. We’ll work it out then.”

And, strangely enough, Jean texted Mikasa that night.

It happened at some point between my dad dropping us back off at home and the sun going down. My sister ignored the novel coincidence of her prediction coming true and begrudgingly picked up her phone to reply to her boyfriend, who hopefully wouldn’t be her boyfriend for much longer. He was texting her to ask if they could meet sometime soon, so they could talk things over. She agreed to spend some time with him after the next Youth Cancer Support Group meeting, which was scheduled for the following Friday.

It was a little disappointing to know that I would have to wait another five days before I got to see Jean have his heart broken.

 

* * *

 

The meeting was set for three-thirty in the afternoon at Shiganshina Library. The temperature had started consistently hovering around freezing, and Mikasa and I had to walk thanks to our dad’s inconvenient-as-hell work hours, but I didn’t mind. Just like October, all of it was an experience. After being shut into a sterile, white-walled prison cell for three weeks, I was happy to feel anything, even if it was below-thirty almost-winter air stinging my face and hands until they lost feeling.

Only part of the group had made it to that meeting. Marco wasn’t there, and neither were Annie, Krista (again) or Levi (insert _oh, Eren_ here), but just like the irritatingly cold weather, it was something I didn’t mind. I was just happy to be spending time with people in a non-medical setting.

That didn’t mean that the meeting was the comfortable gathering it usually was.

When we walked into the building and came face to face with the rest of the group, Mikasa didn’t scamper up to Jean and kiss him in the chaste, cutesy way she usually did when they got together. Once we started talking, they avoided making eye contact for the better part of the hour that the support group spent together.

In the middle of the meeting, it came out that Marco was missing because he had some sort of relapse over the past week and was in too much pain to take a field trip from his hospital to come to the meeting. The thought was kind of ironic, considering that was just the place I had just escaped from a few days earlier. It also made me sick to my stomach. I hadn’t been in that serious of a condition. Sure, I felt shitty, and I might have been at risk for choking on mucus, but I was far from being _that bad_. And according to Jean, Marco was _bad_. Bad enough not to be able to get up from his bed without a pint of morphine in his veins. The doctors had said it was only a side effect from one of his multiple surgeries, something that could be easily fixed, but I hadn’t been listening closely enough to know what it actually was.

As the hour began dragging down to its last few minutes and Hanji gave out her latest writing assignment (What part of your personality do you think your cancer has affected the most?), Jean and Mikasa snuck out of the room. I noticed that they didn’t link their hands together while they walked like I had always seen them do before. I couldn’t help feeling a little triumphant when I saw Mikasa holding out on him like that. But at the same time, it only took me a second to realize exactly how fucked up that was.

When Mikasa came back, she looked a lot more upset than she had when she left. Jean wasn’t with her. I tried to ask why, but she wouldn’t let me get the whole question out.

Instead she pulled me aside from the group and said, “I want to leave. Let’s go.”

There were a few slight problems with that idea which I desperately wanted to point out to her, mainly the fact that the hour still hadn’t run completely out and I wasn’t ready to leave yet. But I wasn’t about to argue with her in her volatile state, so I let her take my arm and tow me all the way to the front door. About six feet away from walking clear out of the building, I started to drag my feet and pulled her to a stop.

“What happened?” I asked. Mikasa stared at me for what felt like forever before she finally gave me her answer.

“Jean and I broke up.”

 _Well, then._ I couldn’t say that it was unexpected.

I wanted so badly to pump my fist into the air and scream “ _YES YOU FINALLY DUMPED THAT HORSE-FACED DOUCHEBAG_ ,” but I realized that there were a few reasons why I couldn’t do that. One, we were in a library and would probably get lynched if we made any sort of noise that was louder than quiet conversation. Two, I saw the look on her face. She seemed shut down, staring at nothing in particular on the other side of the room. The charcoal in her eyes had been mashed into soot. Something told me that what had just gone down in the room a short hallway away from the support group wasn’t worth celebrating just yet.

“What happened?” I asked again, only because my brain couldn’t conjure up anything better to say.

“Too much,” she murmured, the words coming out like the sigh that rushes out of a person’s lungs when they collapse on the couch after a hard day at the office.

“That sucks.” I quickly looped my arm over her shoulders and pulled her close to me. “But you’re gonna be okay, Mikasa. He didn’t deserve you. You’re way too good for him.”

“Apparently that wasn’t what he thought,” she mumbled over my shoulder.

“How did it happen?”

“First it was the hair thing. Honestly, his response pissed me off more than the haircut did for him. He admitted that it was a really stupid thing to get into a fight over. Anyway, when he pulled me out of the room, he was all weepy and apologetic and begging me not to still be mad at him. He was giving me all sorts of excuses, saying that he was just surprised, that he was already under a lot of stress because of what was going on with Marco, and I told him I understood. Because... I do.” She gently ruffled the hair on the back of my head. “But I’m just done. I’m done with him, and knowing that I’m not the kind of girl he really wants, but also knowing that he’s going to keep trying to stay with me for some reason that I can’t even figure out...” She sighed again and nuzzled her head into my shoulder. “I’m just really tired and I want to go home.”

“Then go ahead,” I said, gently stroking her new silky dark cap of hair. It was a little surprising when her hair disappeared and my fingers were running over the back of her neck before I was expecting it. But it was nothing I couldn’t get used to. “But is it alright if I stay here? Will you be okay if you walk back home on your own?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Will you be okay?” she responded straightaway. “It’s really cold. I don’t want you getting pneumonia all over again.”

“I can get a ride from Armin. I’ll work something out.” It was kind of funny. Even when she was in pain, my sister was still more concerned about me than anything else.

“You sure?”

“I’m positive. Just go home, eat some ice cream, watch some shitty Netflix movies... do whatever you have to do. I won’t be out much longer.”

“Alright,” she conceded. Leaving it at that, Mikasa walked out the door.

I ran back to the room where the support group had situated, but by the time I came back, the meeting had already been adjourned. People had started leaving, and the discussion had changed into scattered bits and pieces of conversation. Jean was nowhere to be seen, Connie and Sasha were sitting together on the couch and seemingly off in their own little world, and the remaining four attendees were still gathered together and carrying on some unidentifiable conversation. I ran over and tried to join in, but I showed up just in time to hear the very end.

“My grandpa’s book club meeting just ended. He’s probably going to be stopping by soon,” Armin said.

I broke in just in time to comment, “Hey, Armin, you think I could catch a ride from you?”

My best friend spun around to face me and smiled. “Sure. I don’t think my grandpa will mind.” He turned back to the group. “I should probably get going. I wouldn’t want to miss him.”

“Alright,” Hanji said fondly. “It was so nice seeing you guys again. You especially, Eren. You gotta stop getting sick! We were starting to miss having you around here.” She stepped forward to pull me into a tight hug, laughing as if my absence were a joke or something I had a choice about.

“I’ll see you at the next meeting, Hanji. I promise,” I said. I stepped back from her and immediately got pulled into another hug from Reiner. Then, just as I escaped and started towards the door, I caught one last word from Bertolt.

“Hey, Reiner, can I talk to you about something for a minute?”

I glanced over my shoulder for one last look at the support group. They were still all smiles. Bertolt’s face betrayed nothing, and Reiner pulled his boyfriend’s lanky arm over his shoulder as I had seen him do a million times before. He turned and stepped back a bit, as if he needed to make it a little clearer to his boyfriend that he needed to get him alone. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, his subtle limp seemed a little... less subtle than usual.

“Sure, babe. Always,” Reiner said. I turned away and started walking before I saw anything else.

Armin was standing by the front door when I showed up, glancing back and forth between the window and his phone. He looked up to notice me approaching and shrugged his shoulders to signify that his grandpa was still nowhere to be seen.

“Did he say anything?” I asked as soon as I was within earshot, nodding towards his phone.

“He got a little held up at the meeting,” he said. “He probably won’t be here for another few minutes.” He glanced at the window one more time before he stuffed his phone into his pocket. “I have to go to the bathroom.You mind keeping watch while I’m gone?”

“Okay,” I said, taking up the spot where he had just been standing.

“I won’t be long. Let me know if you see anything.” With that, he turned away and scurried off towards one of painted wooden doors next to the check-out desk.

I wasn’t sure exactly how long I was standing there. It couldn’t have been much more than a minute or two, since Armin didn’t come back, his grandpa didn’t show up, and no one else from the support group came out into the lobby. If it weren’t for the pervasive silence of the library, I might not have heard it at all.

Somewhere in the building, someone let out a short, pained gasp.

It was an all too familiar noise to me. It was a distress call, something that over the years had become unmistakable to me. It was a cry for help, a cry of pain, the noise someone makes right before they break down in tears. I tensed up at the sound, though I wasn’t sure where it came from. I glanced around the room, as if that would make the culprit come straight out and say that the sound was their fault. Nothing like that happened. But I did hear sharp, distressed whispers drifting across the quiet from one corner of the lobby.

My curiosity got the better of me. There might have been a bit of empathy mixed in with it, too, but I couldn’t be sure until I saw who the source had been. Forgetting my promise to Armin, I left my post by the door and wandered over. The muffled conversation grew louder and more emotional the closer I got. Then, as soon as I was close enough, I saw them.

It was Reiner and Bertolt. They were standing together in the hallway that I had just come through. I couldn’t see whether or not the room behind them was empty, but it didn’t seem to matter to them. Bertolt had his back pressed against the wall, and Reiner was standing in front of him, his hands resting on his boyfriend’s chest and clinging to his shirt. He had his back to me and I couldn’t see his face, but his hands were shaking.

Something was definitely wrong. I didn’t need to hear his next words to know that much, but I did anyway.

“Bertolt, please... don’t do this.”

His voice was choked, shaking, so strange and unsteady. It sounded wrong coming from him. He didn’t sound like Reiner anymore.

“I need to hear you say it,” Bertolt pleaded. He had a worried, desperate look on his face, and his hands were draped over Reiner’s shoulders. One rose up to cup the side of his face. “Please, say it for me. Just once.”

“This isn’t the time for that,” his boyfriend replied insistently. “W-why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I’ll explain everything. Just... please, say it for me.” His eyes were starting to water. “Always?”

Reiner’s back shuddered. The word came out in a dying whisper. “Always.”

“I know how you get sometimes. I didn’t want you to start worrying.”

“And you thought that waiting until now was going to make it any better?” Reiner shot back, sounding more hurt than I could have ever imagined he could.

“No one was sure, and there needed to be more tests, but we are now. I- I didn’t want to say anything until I could be sure that you’d have a reason...”

“How did this even happen?”

“No one knows. The last time they checked, everything was clear, but there might have been something that they missed, or the mutations just spontaneously started over again...”

“How long did they say you have?”

Bertolt stared at him, his eyes wide, almost frightened by the words. Reiner kept pressing him anyway. “Bertolt, how long?”

Slowly, so slowly that it was painful to watch, he shook his head. “They don’t know,” he murmured. “They’ll do everything they can, but...”

He trailed off, and Reiner snapped. I watched as his shoulders shuddered again, and again, and in a second his body was shaking uncontrollably. He collapsed against Bertolt’s chest, and a strangled sob escaped that his shirt wasn’t enough to cover up. Tears were starting to stream over Bertolt’s face as well, and he pulled his boyfriend close, leaning his head on top of Reiner’s, winding his arms around his broad back and holding him as close as he could.

“I love you,” he choked out.

“I love you, too.”

“Always.”

Reiner had to sob a few seconds more before he could give his reply. “Always.”

I couldn’t take any more after that. I turned away and ran back to the door, fully aware that I had probably just seen something I shouldn’t have.

******  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry.  
> I'm just really sorry.  
> It's 1:15 AM. I should go to sleep.  
> See you next chapter.


	17. Circumstances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even sure how long it's been between updates this time around. I do know, though, that I am determined to get this chapter posted ON the date that I promised myself I would. So... here it is.  
> Mild warning about this chapter: Neither of my betas were able to give me much commentary on this chapter, mostly because it was TOO FUCKING SAD for them to say anything. Which makes sense. Not sure why I felt the need to point that out. If you started reading this story without knowing what kind of emotional roller coaster you were getting into, I am sincerely sorry.  
> On a lighter note, listen to The Mountain Goats. I did while I was editing this chapter. They will help you process all the feelings that this is probably going to dig up for you. I probably should have told my betas that.  
> If you care, you can follow me on tumblr at the-angstiest-author and post about this story under the tags "fic: tmiu" and "fic: the monsters inside us." Please do, I am a filthy attention whore who is hopelessly addicted to the approval of others.  
> Now enough about me. More about sad gay cancer boys.  
> Story time.

 

It goes pretty much without saying that I wasn’t all that surprised when Bertolt didn’t show up at the next support group meeting.

It was on the first day of December, two in the afternoon on a Saturday. Marco had volunteered his house as the meeting place. Mikasa was with me, and my dad dropped us off. It was nice, having my super-busy parent take some time out of his day so I could meet up with friends in a place that had good memories bonded to it. It would alleviate at least some of the damage that would be done to all of us that day.

Well, except for Reiner, whose damage had already been done.

Julia (since Mrs. Bodt let us call her that) greeted us at the door. She was smiling, as usual.

“Eren! Mikasa, hi there! Great to see you guys.”

I was coaxed into returning the smile. “Great to see you too, Julia.”

“Everyone’s in the living room. I’ve got artichoke dip in the kitchen that’s almost finished heating up, if you two are interested.”

“Sounds fantastic,” Mikasa said politely before pushing me past the doorway. We went on ahead into the living room. Only a few members of the group had shown up so far- Jean, Marco, Hanji and Annie- and I took it as a hint that we had shown up early. There were a few bowls of chips on the coffee table, which were left untouched in anticipation of fresh artichoke dip. Or maybe just because Sasha hadn’t arrived to destroy them yet.

As soon as I walked into the room, I made a beeline for the loveseat where Annie had sprawled herself. She had her legs slung over the arm, her body lying on the cushions, her shortish ponytail spread over the upholstery in a disorderly spray of blonde. She had her phone hovering over her face, engaging her in some smartphone game that I couldn’t identify. Her small frame left just enough space on the couch for some exceptionally skinny person to sit comfortably without trapping her hair under their ass. So I went ahead and took the invitation that I wasn’t given.

“Hey, Annie,” I said a second before I sat down.

She briefly dragged her focus away from her phone to flick her eyes at me, then pulled herself into a new position once she saw what my intentions were. I settled down next to the arm opposite the one that she had her legs over, keeping as far away from her as the furniture would let me. She seemed to have the same thing in mind, since she scrunched herself up in the corner with her phone in front of her face, seeming almost to melt into her giant grey sweatshirt. It didn’t make her seem small in the way that it normally did. She seemed to be shrinking back into it, and I was sure that it had nothing to do with the fact that I had just decided to sit next to her. The way she stared at her phone was hollow and glassy-eyed, like a doll who was only in motion because someone else was pulling the strings to keep her going. She was out of it, or at least as out of it as someone who was never _into it_ to begin with could be.

“I talked to Armin a while ago,” I said, not sure that she was listening. She wasn’t, so I added, “About you.”

For the second time, her eyes flitted over to me. I didn’t keep her interest for long, and in a second she was focused back on her phone. The conversation with Armin that I’d had almost a month earlier replayed on high speed in my head. I kept my eyes on her, but she continually ignored my existence and tapped away at her phone. I was about ready to give up. After five months of consciously deciding to dislike each other, it was pretty unlikely that her opinion of me would be turned around so quickly.

Then she turned her phone around and showed me the screen. Her notepad app was open, and there was something written there for me to read.

_What did he say?_

“Oh. Um...” I said dumbly. “Good things, mostly.”

She took the phone back, backspaced and typed in something new. _Like what?_

“He told me about lot about stuff you’re into. The photography and anime, things like that. It all sounds pretty interesting.”

_What else?_

“Not much. I was sort of wondering... I’ve never really been into anime. He said you were going to introduce him, and I was wondering which ones you had in mind.”

A smirk twitched at one corner of Annie’s mouth, and she turned her phone back towards herself and began typing. After the longest interval between comments that I had seen so far, she showed me the screen. There was a massive list of random words in front of my face that I could only assume were the names of the animes that she was going to be sharing with my best friend. Half of them didn’t even make sense. I couldn’t even guess what the hell _Kuroshitsuji_ , _Ao No Exorcist_ or _Shingeki No Kyojin_ were supposed to mean.

“So... uh... what are they about?”

Annie sighed through her nose and took her phone back. She didn’t start typing again. It took me longer than it probably should have to realize that I had asked the wrong question.

“He, er... Armin also mentioned that you’re into the same kind of music as we are,” I said, desperately trying to save the conversation. “He plays guitar. He’s actually pretty good. Have you heard him?”

_Yeah. Once or twice._

“Okay,” I mused. The conversation was going nowhere at terminal velocity. I figured it was best to get out what I had to before it crash-landed and died. “Listen, I... I just want to say that I’m sorry about...” I wasn’t really sure how to put it. But my words seemed to have caught Annie’s elusive attention. “Everything, I guess. I’m not all that great at making friends, and I sort of assumed things when I shouldn’t have, and... you know.”

Even though she probably didn’t know, she shrugged it off and allotted me a soft,  non-aggressive look, which in Annie’s terms was the equivalent of a friendly smile. Then she was back to her phone. Everyone else who would be coming to that meeting had shown up by then and I knew I had done all I could.

Reiner was the last person to arrive.

I was kind of surprised by his presentation. Reiner wasn’t the type of guy who was dressed impeccably at all times. But that day, he looked a lot less put-together than usual. His clothes and hair were a mess, and he seemed tired, like he had been cramming for an exam or something and he hadn’t slept in days because of it. Still he smiled when the rest of the group saw him walk in and started handing out hugs to everyone in sight.

I leaned over to whisper to Mikasa. “Does he seem a little...” I prompted.

Mikasa, who by then was avoiding Jean and sitting next to me on the main couch, gave me a slight nod. “Yeah.”

I hadn’t told a single soul what I had seen or heard at the last meeting, but the memory of that snatch of whispered conversation, the tears streaming over Bertolt’s face and the way Reiner seemed to break in those few short moments still scratched at the back of my mind like a persistent cat. “What do you think...”

“Don’t know,” Armin pitched in. “Annie knows him better than I do, and according to her he’s been going through a lot lately. She won’t tell me what’s going on, though. I wouldn’t get into it. Let him tell the rest of us whenever he feels ready.”

It was only another few minutes before Julia came in to deposit the artichoke dip and Hanji called all of our attentions to herself. “Alright, guys. Before we start this meeting, I’ve got an announcement to make.”

The low hum of conversation that had been swarming the room fell silent. Levi picked up the explanation where Hanji had left off. “As you all have probably noticed, Krista hasn’t been showing up to meetings for a pretty long time now. And after what happened back in September, this could either be not surprising to you guys at all or an absolute shock, depending on your interpretation.”

Of course, Hanji had to leave it to him to make announcements like this.

“Krista has officially left the Youth Cancer Support Group.”

As soon as the news was out, no one in the room seemed willing to comment. Marco was the only one brave enough to break the silence. “Did she tell you why?”

Hanji spoke up again, the news now safely out of the way. “You all know that she had already been missing from the group for a long time,” she explained. “Then a little bit after the last meeting, she called me to tell me that she wanted out of the group. She was still having a really hard time coping with losing Ymir-”

“So why would she leave?” Connie cut in. “We could have helped her. What the hell do we call ourselves a support group for?”

“She said that the meetings were a trigger to her,” Hanji plowed onward, trying to continue as if Connie had never cut her off. “Every time she was here, she started thinking about Ymir and it was causing a lot of problems for her. She said that she reached the age limitation a while back anyway, and it was about time she severed her ties to the group.”

“But doesn’t she need help?” Sasha asked.

“She’s getting it from other places,” Levi replied. “You know how Krista is. She has friends outside the group, ready and willing to let her to cry on their shoulders. As far as we’re able to tell, she’s going to be okay.”

That answer managed to sufficiently shut everyone up, and the meeting continued as usual. Mikasa coaxed me into talking about my almost-three-week-long hospital stay. (Minus, obviously, the episode at the pool with Levi, who was looking at me from across the room the entire time as if he expected me to bring it up.) Once that was over, Marco talked a little bit about the hospitalization he’d had towards the end of mine, then Jean started up a discussion about how Marco’s struggles had affected everyone else. The whole group professed their support for their universal freckled best friend, and then Mikasa somehow managed to twist that into a mention of her breakup with Jean. She never revealed how it had happened, though, and when the hour ran out and the discussion period finally came to a close, Connie and Sasha flocked over to Jean to ask.

Once the circle had dissolved, a gravitational force began pulling me towards Levi. I tried my hardest to ignore it and stuck by Armin and Mikasa. I did my best to stay focused on the conversation that they were having, but for some reason my attention kept getting sidetracked.

Levi was standing with Marco and Hanji just a few feet away from us. There was some kind of conversation going on, and two out of three people seemed to be enjoying it. Eventually I got tired and decided to let my focus wander over to where that annoying little bit of me with no self control had been pulling it for ages. _Fine, brain. I’ll eavesdrop on them, if you want it so fucking badly._

I couldn’t hear them over the dialogue going on right in front of me, but that didn’t stop me from trying. A moment passed with me straining to figure out what they were talking about, then I spotted Reiner approaching their group on the loveseat that Annie had abandoned. He joined in, Marco walked off to aid Jean in his desperate struggle against wannabe stoner and potato junkie, and then something about the entire situation changed. Maybe it was the stony look on Reiner’s face when he opened his mouth, or the way Hanji’s smile dropped almost the very second he did. Levi, as usual, remained unchanged, but I saw him place a hand on Reiner’s lumpy shoulder and his lips form words that I intuitively knew were soft and consoling.

Once again, the conversation I’d spied on at the last meeting stabbed me in the back. A flashback exploded in my head; the new vial of radioactivity that was about to shatter and put another subject in Schroedinger’s support group out of commission.

_The last time they checked, everything was clear, but there might have been something that they missed, or the mutations just spontaneously started over again..._

I didn’t want to think about what those words meant. So I pretended I’d never heard them and acted surprised when Hanji stood back and called the group’s attention to herself for the second time.

“Guys! Newsflash! We have another announcement!”

Even for all the enthusiasm she put into her words, I could still sense the heaviness in them, the undeniable feeling that something was wrong. It got even worse when Reiner stepped forward to stand next to her.

“Hey. Um... as you guys have probably noticed, Bertolt isn’t here today.”

He was hesitating. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t right.

“And the reason for that is... Well, he had a chemo appointment scheduled for today.” Reiner stopped, as if he’d forgotten where his speech had been going. He had to take a deep breath before he started again. “Bertolt had a reoccurrence. He had one almost two weeks ago, actually. That was when his doctors first started suspecting something. You see, after all the bone replacements he’s had, they thought there was nothing left, but... you never really know, I guess. And last week, they gave him a scan, and... and there it was.” He smiled weakly, as if this were supposed to be some kind of joke, but the crack in his voice let everyone know that it wasn’t.

“Anyway, he’s started undergoing treatment again, and that’s where he is right now. So, if you could, just... send your support his way, alright?”

And with that, Reiner walked out of the spotlight and a moment of stunned silence later, the group returned to its former buzz. Annie had gotten up from her spot on the couch and quickly followed the group’s big brother to his empty corner. After a second’s hesitation, I went after her. Armin followed, and Mikasa, probably out of habit, came along as well.

“Reiner, I am so sorry,” was the first thing out of Armin’s mouth when he approached.

Reiner looked away from Annie and towards us, seeming a little surprised that anyone else had bothered to come after him. “There’s no need to be sorry,” he said, struggling to smile warmly at us in the way that had earned him his title. “There was nothing anyone could have done.”

“But still, that... That really sucks. I mean... he’d been in remission for almost two years. He was fine, and then he just... It’s so unfair.” It seemed almost like Armin was more upset about Reiner’s boyfriend than Reiner was himself.

“I know it feels that way, but let’s face it. Life is unfair,” Reiner said dismissively. “If it weren’t, then none of us would be here in the first place.”

“I just hope everything turns out okay,” Mikasa said softly. “You said they just found it two weeks ago, right? And they started treatment right after?”

“Yeah, they did. Doesn’t mean that it was only growing there for two weeks, though.” All of a sudden, Reiner’s demeanor had started to break. “No one knows how long it’s been growing. They hadn’t screened him for new cells in over a year. When the last transplant was done, everyone thought that it was gone, that he was cured, but then he started feeling pain in his joints again, in all new places where he’d never felt it before, and then the scan results came back...”

“How bad was it?” I asked, stupidly, before I had even thought about what those words would force him to say. The answer took him ten seconds. Ten seconds of painful silence, ten seconds of hearing his breaths start to shake, ten seconds until he took a breath deep enough to get the words past the lump in his throat.

“H-he was lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree,” he finally managed to choke out. Then he dropped his gaze to the floor. A hand came up to rub nervously at the back of his neck, and when it came back down his broad shoulders were starting to shudder. “I... I just don’t understand. Th-that cancer... for people who’ve had it for five years or less... has a seventy percent survival rate.” He stopped, inhaled, and I saw tears glinting in the corners of his eyes. “Seventy percent. And he has to be part of the fucking thirty that doesn’t make it!”

A tear slipped loose and slid over his face, then all of a sudden everyone had converged on him. Annie and Armin were first, I’m guessing because their shared blondeness gave them some kind of metaphysical connection that hadn’t reached me and Mikasa just yet. But it was only a second’s difference. I overlapped Armin in the group hug, and my fingers pressed into Reiner’s deformed melanoma skin as they always did. But this time, he was in too much pain for me to bother thinking about it. I didn’t share the telepathic connection that he apparently had with the other blondes in the support group, but I still found myself thinking the same words over and over again while I pulled myself close to him and leaned over Armin to press my face into his shoulder.

_I heard what you said in the library. I knew what was happening. I’m so sorry you had to say it yourself._

When all of us finally let go, a little bit of warmth was back in Reiner’s eyes. He wiped a tear roughly away from his cheek and glanced at me for a second.

_It’s okay._

I don’t know if that was what he was really thinking then, but I sincerely hoped that it was.

 

* * *

 

I have no idea what the hell possessed Bertolt to show up to the next support group meeting.

It was probably the fact that Reiner had offered to host again. His house was more comfortable and definitely more accessible than any public place would have been. Besides, there he was surrounded by his friends and other people he loved, not to mention Reiner’s comfy, broken-in living room furniture.

Also it would lessen the chances that he would have to go out in public looking the way he did.

He had already been at Reiner’s house for a while by the time anyone from the YCSG showed up. That included me.

I climbed out of the backseat of the Arlert Accord, taking care to thank Armin’s grandpa before I stepped onto the pavement. Mikasa climbed out of the opposite side, then Armin from the passenger seat, letting his grandpa know that he would text as soon as the meeting ended (which was now necessary, since they rarely followed the old one-hour time constraint anymore).

“I don’t know about you guys,” Mikasa said, “but I’m kind of glad we’re going to be seeing Bertolt again.”

“I am too,” Armin replied hesitantly. “A little, anyway. I’m kind of worried about the condition he’s in.”

“Well...” I started, struggling to find a way to look on the bright side. I had been trying not to think about _the condition he’s in_ for days. “Going to visit his boyfriend probably isn’t too much of a strain for him. I mean, he doesn’t have to go out or walk around too much, he’s in a comfortable place, and... um...”

Armin stared down at the frosty grass and nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Doesn’t make a difference as to how sick he is, though.”

I sighed through my nose and went ahead of them to ring the doorbell. _You’re not helping, Armin_ , I thought.

My best friend and best sister caught up with me just as I pressed the plastic button and heard the muffled noise of metallic chimes echo on the other side of the door. A second later it swung open and Mindy was standing in the doorway. Her curious, vibrant fox eyes turned up to look at us. “Hi, guys!” she chirped. “We’re in the living room.”

“Thanks, Mindy,” Armin said cordially. The little girl beamed at him and turned to scamper off into the house. We followed not too far behind, not at all sure what kind of scene we would be walking into.

Reiner’s living room was the same as it had always been, save for one thing. Bertolt was collapsed on the loveseat, looking just different enough from the last time that we had seen him for it to make me uncomfortable. His skin, which up to even a week earlier had retained a minor tan, had started to take on that pale, chemo-sickened color that I had seen far too many times before. Every time he moved, it seemed to pain him a little. Still he smiled at us when we walked in, and Reiner got up briefly to crush each of us with a deadly bear hug before he rushed back to his boyfriend’s side. I glanced cautiously around, searching for a place to sit, then a light tap on my shoulder and the subconscious feeling that Mikasa and Armin had both left me on my own distracted me from my sweep of the room. I glanced behind me and pretended I didn’t feel my heart shudder when I saw Levi standing behind me.

“Hey, brat,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly upward. “Nice to see your lungs are still working properly.”

“Well, you weren’t the one who fixed them, but thanks anyway.” I quickly smiled at him to make up for my unintentional rudeness that I was way too slow to detect. “You want to go sit down?”

“Sure. Nothing like broken couches to fix my broken spine.” He led me over to the largest couch in the room and scooted himself into the corner. I sat down next to him, taking care to leave a few inches of space between us.

“How the hell did you break your spine?” I asked like the idiot I truly am.

“I didn’t actually break it,” he replied. “It’s just the way I describe the nagging feeling that I’m giving myself kyphosis from studying for so much.” He locked his arms behind his back, and I heard a series of loud, satisfactory clicks issue from his vertebrae. “There isn’t much I can do about it, though.”

“So... classes are going well, then?”

“Yeah. They’re okay. I have to work myself to half to death to keep up, but my grades are still staying where they should be.”

“What about Hanji?”

“Shitty glasses is fine, as far as I can tell. She still pops up every so often to piss me off on campus.” He glanced across the room to where the alluded part-time nurse was walking in with a box of Munchkins clutched in one hand and a few packets of paper in the other. “I don’t see her around Trost anymore, though. It’s a little quiet, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Makes it easier to focus, you know?”

“Yeah.” I shifted a little on the cushions. Things were starting to get uncomfortable, and my skin was hyperaware of Levi’s closeness. I was never good at small talk. My brain searched for more conversation starters while I silently begged the rest of the group to get their shit together and start the meeting already.

“How’s homeschool?”

“Fine,” I replied shortly. _Why is he asking about me?_ I thought despairingly. _Nothing ever happens in my life. I have nothing to say. There’s nothing to talk about._ I risked a glance over at him to find that his piercing eyes were waiting for mine to meet them. _Please don’t ask me something personal, please don’t ask something personal..._

“How have you been holding up lately?” he asked. “You know... emotionally.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“I’ve been managing,” I said, being as honest with him as I would let myself be. “I-I’ve been okay.”

“You sure?” The ice in his eyes melted a little and I caught a twinge of concern in his expression. “You remember what happened last time.”

The words _What happened last time?_ crossed my mind before I realized that we were both fully aware of what last time he was talking about.

“I-I know, I remember,” I unsteadily responded. “I’m going to... I’ll do my best not to let it happen again.”

“Good. You’d better not.” He casually bumped his knee into the side of my leg. “Because if you fall off the face of the Earth again and I have to run over to your place for another emergency session, I’ll be pissed.”

I let out a slow, angsty sigh in order to cut down on my illogical urge to laugh. “You didn’t seem too upset about it last time.”

“It was my first time doing anything like that, and it went better than I expected. And can you blame me for wanting the kids in this godforsaken support group to be happy?”

“So would you be pissed off with me because I’d be taking up your time, or because I would be upset?”

“Both, probably. You just seem so prone to disappearing sometimes that I’ve worried about it happening again. As an admin, I just want the people in this group to live lives that aren’t nearly as bad as they could be.”

“Well, I’m sorry I have such a propensity for shitting on your dreams, Levi.”

Levi’s hand flew up to his mouth and covered up an extremely attractive snort before Hanji shouted at everybody and called for the meeting to start.

The discussion went around the circle the way it usually did. There was always something to say with the Youth Cancer Support Group. But, oddly enough, none of those somethings had anything to do with the wilting boy sinking into the couch next to Reiner.

I had never felt the need to use the phrase _elephant in the room_ before, despite all the times I probably could have. It was so obvious, staring us all in the face, and yet everyone chose to ignore it. Over the constant buzz of my nerves reacting to Levi’s presence (yet another thing that went as unacknowledged as possible), there was the urge to open up and point out that no one was talking about what probably most needed to be mentioned. Everything grew worse when, a few minutes after the discussion started, Mindy rushed in to bother all of us. She leaped for her favorite spot between her big brother and his boyfriend, and I saw the stifled look of pain cross Bertolt’s face when the little girl’s body crash-landed almost on top of his. Reiner had to pull her away from him and into his own lap instead of letting her take up the space she had loved to sit in so much.

I was sure everyone was feeling it just as strongly as I was. Still, no one said anything. The thought made me sick, and I could hardly think about anything else.

 

* * *

 

The next meeting at the Beans wasn’t all that much better. If anything, it was worse. It seems selfish of me to be talking about what was happening as if the problem were mine, because there couldn’t be anything further from the truth. Everything was happening to _him_ , the disease and the side effects and everything else. I was just watching it.

That day, four days after the meeting at Reiner’s house, Bertolt seemed like he was having a hard time moving at all. The slight limp that he’d had all the time that I had known him had turned into a pronounced and constant attribute to the way he moved. Nearly every time he stood up or walked, he was leaning on Reiner for support.

Even when he was falling to pieces, he still came to the Shiganshina Library for the next meeting. And the meeting after that, for which Marco had kindly volunteered his house again.

Every time I saw Bertolt, I could see him getting progressively worse. He was losing weight, then he was loping around on crutches. I didn’t know exactly how much of his body had to be infected to warrant a “Christmas tree” PET scan, and no one ever learned the gory details but those who absolutely had to know. In my mind I figured there was hardly anything left of him that didn’t have something wrong with it. He was going downhill fast, like a skier who hit a patch of ice, uncontrollable and destined to crash into something before they reach the bottom.

At the last meeting, ten days after Reiner made his announcement, Bertolt was so broken down that he had to covertly ask his boyfriend to bring him home before the first hour of the meeting had even ended.

He was failing. I could see it. I could sense it. I had watched it happen to my mom, and now it was happening to him. Unless some miracle happened, he wouldn’t last much longer.

Then, one day, he just stopped showing up.

 

* * *

 

It was pretty difficult to get any information about what was happening to Bertolt Hoover after that. At meetings (when he was still coming to them), he had never spoken in a lot of detail about what was going on. Whether he wanted it that way or he was simply too tired to make himself do it was up for debate. Reiner kept pretty quiet about everything as well, probably to respect his boyfriend’s wishes (if there were any). Then he stopped coming to meetings at around the same time that Bertolt did. After that, there was only so much I knew about what was happening to him.

My only reliable source was Armin.

“It’s gotten bad,” he said when he came over my house to decorate for Christmas. Because, even though I hadn’t acknowledged it much, it was halfway through December. The holiday season was already upon us.

“How bad?” I asked as I scooted a big plastic box out of a closest. “You’ve gotta be more specific than that.” We were in my basement, ferrying things back and forth on the staircase. Or, more accurately, Mikasa and my dad were doing the ferrying while Armin carried small stuff and I did... something productive.

“How specific do you want me to get? It’s already a little debatable as to how much they would want me to share.” He peeled back the lid of one of the boxes to reveal that it was full of plastic pine tree pieces and shoved it to the side, huffing a little from the effort. I glanced sideways at him. I knew he had gone to visit Reiner once or twice while Bertolt was absent from the support group, and on the last occasion his boyfriend happened to be around. He had to know at least _a little_ about the extent of the condition that Bertolt was in.

“Well, if Reiner was willing to let you visit, then he must have expected that you would say something to someone else.”

“Maybe he didn’t. He’s not all that intuitive.”

“Well, how bad could it be if you told me? I’m only one person. It’s not like there are a lot of people I could tell. I just haven’t heard anything about it, and-

“Hey, guys! Have you found the tree branches yet? Dad and I are almost done putting the stand together!” Mikasa shouted at us from upstairs.

Armin looked back at the box he had just taken out. “That must be what these things are.” He turned to the stairs and shouted back, “Yeah, we did! They’ll be up in a minute!” Then he fixed his fingers under the carrying ledges of the box and whined a little as he painstakingly lifted it up from the ground.

I quickly left the closet and grabbed the other side. “You need some help with that.”

“N-no, it’s fine,” Armin said through his teeth. “It’s not as heavy as it looks.”

“Armin, you look like your arms are going to break off.”

“As if you could lift it any better.”

Then my dad came down the stairs, picked up the box himself and saved us from arguing any further. “You could come upstairs and help out, if you’re tired of picking through the boxes,” he said.

“It’s fine,” I replied. “We’ve only got a few more to find. We’ll be up there in a few minutes.”

He nodded, offered me an acquiescent “Alright.” and made his way back up the stairs with the box of fake branches in his arms. I stared up after him for a moment before Armin distracted me again.

“It’s been a while since he was home to decorate with you guys, hasn’t it?”

I turned back to him and glowered in his direction. “Bertolt,” I said shortly.

My friend sucked in a deep breath and sighed through his nose. “Fine. Do you really want to know that badly?”

“I do. It sucks being kept out of the loop.”

“I know. But I’m still not sure that Bertolt would want the group to know about...” he paused a second and reconsidered his words. “He probably hasn’t said anything because he doesn’t want them to worry.”

“They already know he’s relapsed. I don’t know that there’s much more for them to worry about.”

“Right.” Armin sighed again and sat down among the boxes on the floor. “It’s bad,” he said, repeating the words he’d used before. “Really, really bad.”

I wasn’t going to ask _How bad?_ again. I wasn’t in the mood for any more repetition. Instead I decided to go for something simpler, which I was pretty sure would prompt him to keep talking.

“And?”

“He was being given chemotherapy every other day for a while,” he said. “He hasn’t gotten any better, and from what I’ve heard, he and his family are thinking of stopping it soon. He’s lost maybe twenty pounds since he was re-diagnosed. And... oh god, he’s in so much pain. He can’t walk anymore.”

“Bertolt can’t walk?” It didn’t make sense to me. I had thought he didn’t have any real bone matter left in his legs.

“It’s his spine. The cancer attacked his vertebrae, and he can’t take the pressure that standing puts on his back. He needs crutches to hold himself up. At this point it’s painful for him to do a lot of things.”

“Do they know how far it’s spread?”

“I’m not sure,” Armin said, staring at the floor and giving his head a slow shake. “I think he’s still got some of his vital organs intact, but that’s all just guesswork. I haven’t heard anything from Reiner, Annie or anyone else. No one talks about it.”

I stared at Armin, unable to find any kind of response. There was nothing that I could say to that. I couldn’t even make a joke about Annie, despite the glaring opportunity. So I decided to go the generic route and said, “I feel so sorry for him.”

“What are you telling _me_ for?” Armin asked.

“I don’t know,” I blurted out, as if that would fix the conversation. “I seriously don’t. It just happened. It’s reflexive.”

“Hm.” Just like that, he had gone back to digging through the boxes, as if he were trying to forget the conversation we’d just had. “It’s such a weird convention. Saying _sorry_ whenever something bad happens to someone. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know. I’ve always hated it. You shouldn’t be apologizing unless whatever happened was your fault. If it isn’t, then there’s no point in saying you’re sorry.”

“It’s probably meant as an expression of regret, but you’re right. The wording doesn’t make much sense. Besides, you just said it.”

“And _you_ just said it’s a social convention. I didn’t even think about it. It just came out. There you go.”

Armin rolled his eyes at me and went back to rifling through my decorations. After a few minutes, the exact same amount of time I had told my dad we would take, we found that there wasn’t any more to be dug out of storage and grabbed the few remaining decorations that we hadn’t handed off to my dad and sister. The rest were stuffed back into their corresponding boxes and pushed back into the closet. Then we rushed upstairs to take part in setting up my Christmas tree and forget the conversation we’d just had.

 

* * *

The tree looked fantastic, once we finally decided we were finished screwing around with it. It looked even more fantastic when I thought about the fact that I had a friend close enough to decorate it with me.

The lights were off in the living room, the window outside already dark after the sun had set unreasonably early. The multicolored glow of the tree lights added a splash of color to the dim room and the flickering blue-white luminescence of the TV screen.

I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was to watch _Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen_ , but that was what we were doing.

My dad had made the suggestion of watching a movie after we had sufficiently scraped our hands up on the stiff, dusty plastic needles of the Christmas tree, then we threw together a few bowls of popcorn and Mikasa made us all her “customized” hot chocolate, meaning she used packaged mix and added some random mystery ingredient to it (which happened to be chili powder this time around). No one felt like going all the way to the second floor to get their computer to connect to Netflix, so we picked through the DVD collection until early-2000s Disney reared its fake-blonde, way-too-colorful head. It must have been either the nostalgia value or the prospect of dredging up Mikasa’s embarrassing 6-year-old teenie bopper phase that convinced us to actually play it.

I was curled up on the couch between Mikasa and Armin, hands wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate and sharing two blankets among the three of us. My dad was off to the side in a god-knows-how-old armchair with a mug and blanket to himself. I found myself making a snide comment in every single scene, trying to prove that I wasn’t enjoying the movie as much as everyone else in the room knew I sort of was.

It was after Lola realized that she had lost her ticket money that my dad finally decided to point out what was glaringly obvious to all of us.

“What is with this movie? It’s like everything that can possibly go wrong is going wrong.”

“Hell if I know,” I replied. “I think that’s supposed to make it funny.”

“It’s not,” he said. “Can you imagine going all that way only to realize you can’t even do something that you have put a ridiculous amount of work and planning into? That’s not funny, that’s just depressing.”

“ _Life_ is depressing, Dad,” I deadpanned.

“Well, aren’t you just a little ray of sunshine.”

Mikasa stifled a giggle. I kicked her in the leg to shut her up and almost made her spill her hot chocolate. She shoved me back, then I bumped into Armin and startled him into clutching the popcorn bowl in a death grip before my dad finally cut in and said, “Hey. Don’t make me separate you three.”

With each of us in possession of two-thirds of a blanket, none left in the living room and the thermostat slightly lower than what was comfortable, separating wasn’t such an easy thing to execute, so the threat kept us (relatively) still for the rest of the movie.

Once the credits started rolling, Mikasa jumped off the couch to take it out of the DVD player as quickly as possible while my dad flicked the lights on and noticed Armin’s big black guitar case leaned up against the wall next to where he’d left his shoes. He asked what Armin had brought his guitar for, Armin said that there was no specific reason, and the entire conversation progressed into another impromptu performance from my secretly talented best friend who was slightly less terrified about performing this time around.

He had learned a few new songs since he’d last played at my house in August. If I hadn’t been so floored by his abilities the first time I had seen them, I might have had enough judgement to say that he had improved. He went through his own shy, shaky rendition of The Plain White Ts’ _Hey There, Delilah_. Mikasa asked if he could play a few songs that he shyly claimed he didn’t know how yet, I sat there and listened to him like the idiot fan that he had turned me into. And my dad...

He didn’t do much, actually. I was waiting for him to say something, maybe ask Armin a few questions or offer criticism of some kind. He never did. He just sat in the adjacent corner, facing my friend and his guitar on an angle, quietly appreciating the show. My dad happened to be very skilled in the arts of quiet appreciation.

When the second song (something called _Breezeblocks_ that I had never heard before) finally reached its end and Armin’s fingers stilled the strings, he finally said, “That was fantastic, Armin. You’re really talented.”

Armin took a deep breath to make up for what he’d lost while singing. “Th-thanks, Mr. Jaeger.”

Armin wasn’t feeling up to playing any more, so my dad decided it was a good time to order us some pizza and leave us to our own devices while he got some work done. Even though he would be gone the next morning, he had still agreed to let Armin spend the night at our house. He knew us well enough to be sure that nothing hazardous would come to pass while he wasn’t there. At least not while Mikasa was there to watch us.

Over pizza and in the absence of my dad, the conversation wandered over to the same topic that I had taken up with Armin in the basement hours beforehand. It was all Mikasa’s fault.

“How’s Bertolt doing? I’ve been wondering about him lately,” she asked.

Armin balked for a second at the sudden inquiry, but after a moment’s hesitation he gave her exactly the same message that he had given me in the basement: Bertolt’s cancer was everywhere, he was in horrible pain, the whole shebang.

“Oh my god,” was all Mikasa offered in response, her face pallid.

Armin shrugged and took the point off the end of his slice of pizza. “You wanted to know.”

“Maybe I did, but I didn’t think _that_ was what I would end up hearing. I didn’t know it would progress that fast,” she said.

“Apparently it wasn’t fast at all,” I pointed out. “It was just undetected.”

“But back in October, he was...” My sister trailed off and stared pensively down at the pizza box in front of her.

“I talked to him a while back. He told me he’d been feeling it for a while, but it hadn’t gotten serious until last month. By the time he finally got screened, it was already all over his skeleton and had started spreading into the surrounding tissues-”

“Jesus Christ, Armin, we don’t need his medical record,” I quipped, thankfully cutting him short.

“I-I know. I’m sorry,” he said. I sighed internally. Even after being friends for almost six months, he was still apologizing to me at every single opportunity. “I just... I don’t know how else to deal with it. I don’t want to keep it all bottled up.”

Mikasa spoke up again. “But nobody who’s seen Bertolt lately talks about the kind of condition he’s in. They probably don’t want word about it getting out.”

“That’s probably why I haven’t been invited to visit them much lately,” Armin admitted.

“So no one mentions it?”

“No. Not even Annie. She texts me all the time about how it makes her feel, but she never talks about what’s actually going on,” he replied. “Eren, don’t you fucking dare,” he added, glaring in my direction.

“Wasn’t even thinking about it, I swear,” I said. It was a total lie. I definitely was.

“That doesn’t sound right,” Mikasa said, turning her attention back to her pizza. “What are they trying to do, get the group to pretend it isn’t happening? Do they think that’s going to make it any better?”

“Yeah, they think that ignoring the existence of a terminal disease is going to magically cure it. Obviously that’s what they’re trying to do,” Armin snipped. He shook his head and dropped his gaze to the carpet. “If anything, I think they’re trying to keep the group from stressing out too much over it.”

“Then I don’t think they realize what kind of dynamic the Youth Cancer Support Group has.”

Armin considered my sister’s words for a minute, then nodded and went back to pushing pizza into his mouth to forget the taste of cancer talk. I wanted to do the same, but the sudden resurrection of the subject had made me feel sick. I was barely able to finish off the crust of my last slice. Whatever was going on with Bertolt, I was tired of hearing about it.

Maybe that was why he and the rest of his friends were keeping so quiet. If it hurts to think about, you don’t want to waste your life dredging it up over and over. You want to forget. And if you can’t, at least you can make those around you do what you are unable to. Then, by the time the impact finally comes, the pain explodes all at once, and it can pass away peacefully, like a ghost. They can all suffer through it once you’re no longer around to see how much pain they’re in.

After the pizza was depleted, we all piled into Mikasa’s room, gathered around her laptop and buried the remains of the conversation under as many episodes of Orphan Black as we could stay awake through. My dad poked his head in to check on us once or twice, but the sight was always the same: the three of us, huddled under blankets and propped up on pillows with the bluish laptop glow cast across our faces. Eventually he stopped, and over the dialogue I heard his bedroom door swing shut.

Some time after one in the morning, I was the first person to drop off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Three days later, my phone started ringing.

It was some time in the evening that I was too preoccupied to be sure of. I was scrunched over in front of my laptop, trying to complete an algebra two practice sheet while reading and re-reading the notes from my homeschool teacher a thousand times over. Even after having his voice explain it in my head so many times I had stopped bothering to count, I still didn’t understand. A break was more than welcome. I dragged myself across my room to answer it.

The generic grey stick figure silhouette of a picture-less contact lit up the screen of my phone, and the name _Levi_ was spelled across the image in stark white letters. After briefly wondering what the hell I had done wrong to make him call me, I picked up. “Hello?”

“Hey, brat. Are you busy?”

I glanced over at the mess of notepaper on my bed. “No.”

“Okay.” A second’s pause, then, “What are you doing right now?”

“Now much,” I replied. “I’m just at home. You know, like I always am.”

Another few seconds of silence. And then...

“Would you mind if I came over for a while?”

My heart pulsed so hard that it crashed into my ribs and nearly made me drop my phone. “W-what?”

“Can I come over?” He repeated the question delicately in my ear. “Not for long. Maybe just an hour or two.”

“I-I...” I spluttered as if I had forgotten how words were supposed to work. I glanced at the clock. It was a few minutes past seven. “Right now?”

“What is it? You home alone or something? We could meet somewhere, if that would be better.”

“I-I can’t,” I finally managed to reply. “I’m kind of landlocked right now.” It wasn’t the whole truth. There was a small possibility that I could get out of the house. I sensed the faint presence of my dad hanging around somewhere in the house, probably running some lab data through his computer. Despite his tendency towards being neutral about just about everything, I wasn’t sure that he would be too fond of the idea of me leaving the house on a spur-of-the-moment decision to go and hang out with another guy who I might wind up getting with someday. At least _he_ thought that I might get with him someday. I, on the other hand, knew his prediction would never come true.

“I could drive you. It’s really no big deal.”

I could barely hear Levi over the sound of the conflicted maelstrom in my head. “Why are you asking me right now?”

“No reason, really. Classes are over, I don’t have much work tonight, Hanji was busy, and the support group’s been kind of dead lately... wait. Shitty word choice. There I go again.”

“It’s okay,” I said senselessly.

I heard a soft exhale on the other end that sounded almost like a laugh. “Okay. So is that a yes, or...”

“Hold on a second. I’ll be right back.” I put the phone down and left the room without waiting for a response from him. There was only one solution to this dilemma, no matter how awkward it might be.

I approached my dad’s room, found the door ajar and pushed it open. “Dad, Levi wants to stop by. He said he won’t be here long. Is that okay?”

My dad turned around in the swivel chair in front of his desk and looked at me with the startled eyes of someone who had been suddenly distracted while thoroughly immersed in their work. His laptop sat open on the desk, some charts and spreadsheets scattered across the screen.

“Huh?” he muttered bewilderedly.

“Levi wants to come over.”

“Oh.” He took a breath and ran a hand over his longish, messy hair. “Why is he asking?”

“He has some time tonight and wants to stop by.”

“Wait, wait, he wants to come over tonight? As in _right now_?”

“Yes, that’s what I just said.”

“Why now?”

“Because he has time. Circumstances, Dad.”

“He could have said something in advance. Maybe yesterday, at the very least.”

What he was saying made a measure of sense. But when I reconsidered it, I found a few excuses to make for my ex-nurse. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who did a lot of things on impulse, and I guessed that my dad thought of him the same way. But judging by the state of his life, spare time was probably a rare commodity.

“I know, it’s kind of sudden,” I said. “He said he won’t be here long. He just wants to stop by for an hour or two.”

My dad mulled it over for a second and glanced at the clock reading in the corner of his laptop screen. “Well... I suppose he could, if it’s only for a little while,” he concluded.

An excited smile lit up on my face. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Why does he want to visit all of a sudden, anyway?” he inquired. I couldn’t have missed the suggestive tone in his voice if I tried.

It was then that I finally saw the one abnormality of the situation. Other than the fact that Levi had just asked me if he could make a casual, non-requested visit, of course. He had never mentioned anything about his reasons for wanting to do so in the first place. Meaning that he had no motives. No premeditated purpose.

In that moment, it was entirely possible to me that Levi wanted to come and visit for the sole purpose of seeing me.

“It’s support group stuff,” I blurted out, giving my dad the first excuse that I could throw together. “If Mikasa hasn’t told you, we’ve kind of got a tragedy in the works. I guess he’s just making sure the kids are all handling it well.”

“I know, I know,” he assured me. Then, as soon as my respect for him had rebuilt itself, he felt the need to add, “Are you sure that’s all this is about?”

It was about two steps away from him saying _If you’re going to fuck him, make sure you use protection._

“Yes,” I asserted. “Don’t be gross, Dad.”

I raced back to my room and tapped the screen of my phone, then was momentarily crippled by gratitude when I saw that Levi hadn’t hung up while I was gone. I wasted no time pressing the phone back to my ear. “Hey. I’m back.”

“Where were you?”

"Asking my dad if it was okay for you to stop by."

“So he’s home tonight?” Levi sounded almost as suspicious of the fact than I would have been a few months earlier. In all the times we had talked together, I had mentioned my dad’s tendency to be absent far more than once.

“Yeah. It must be Christmas or something.”

I heard a noise on the other end that might have been a low, half-hearted snicker. “What did he say?”

“He said it’s fine.” Along with a lot of other things.

“Okay. I’ll be there in about twenty.”

 _Short time_ , I thought. Then a thought struck me. “Where are you?” I suddenly felt the need to ask.

“Driving. I got out of Sina a while back, and I’m about halfway through Trost.”

“Where are you going?”

“Your place, obviously.”

“I know that. But if you weren’t, where would you be going?”

“Back home,” he said shortly. “Listen, I really shouldn’t be on the phone right now. Twenty minutes, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. Then a soft click and silence in my ear signified that Levi had left the conversation.

 _If he weren’t going to see me, he would be going home_. The fact had me thinking more than it probably should have. What did it mean? Levi wouldn’t have gone out of his way if he weren’t sure that I would be available. He wasn’t that kind of person. Wherever home happened to be, he must have been on his way there as it was.

Before I dragged the thought out much farther, I jammed my hand behind the dresser and pulled my notebook out of its hiding place. I laid it flat on the dresser, flicked to the next clean page, and jotted down my thoughts as quickly as I could.

_What if the one thing you wanted more than anything was closer than you could have imagined, but you had simply never seen it before?_

Once the words were out of my head and down on paper, I stuffed the notebook back into its usual place and it was back to algebra for the time being.

Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang. Levi was at my door, just like he had promised.

I leaped off of my bed, stopped halfway to the door to check myself in the mirror on the inside of my closet,then, once I was sure I looked not-atrocious, I scampered the rest of the way down to the front entryway.

I pulled the door open and was greeted by a blast of frosty air to the face. Little flurries drifted down in the breeze, barely visible in the dusk outside. Levi was standing there in the middle of it, his back to me, standing on my doorstep and staring off into the distance on the other side of the street. Goosebumps rose on my arms, and I had to take a tentative breath before I was able to speak.

Before I said a word, he turned around. “Eren,” he said quietly, as if I had surprised him. His eyes fixed on mine and sent a shiver through my bones.

“Hi,” I replied nervously.

“Can I come in?”

“O-of course.” I stepped back and pulled the door open wider in order to let him through. Levi dashed inside, and I pushed the door closed behind him as quickly as I could. When I turned around, he had already shed his coat and draped it over one of the hooks on the wall. “I was kind of wondering what was with the sudden decision to come over here,” I started, too curious to hold back. “You’ve never come over here before, and I was just thinking it was a little odd. I don’t know if Hanji usually does this, or-”

“Sometimes,” Levi said. “If we think we need to. It’s a tactic reserved for special cases only, really.” He had kicked off his sneakers and was coming close to me again. He stood in front of me, his eyes expectant, as if he were waiting for me to lead him somewhere.

“Do you... you want a drink or something? Anything I can get you?”

“No, you don’t have to,” he said, a little too quickly.

“Alright,” I murmured, not sure how to proceed. “I guess... can we move this into the kitchen, maybe?”

“Sure. Anywhere is fine.”

“Right.” I nodded and started towards the room in question. He followed behind me, then leaned up against the counter while I pulled the fridge open and took out a can of Sprite. I glanced over my shoulder in the middle of it, saw him standing there, waiting, and rethought my course of action. I took a second can out and held it out to him. He shrugged and took it from me, and I finally felt safe closing the refrigerator.

“So... I’m still kind of confused,” I said as I popped the tab on my can. “Why did you decide to come over tonight?” I crossed the kitchen to sit down at the table, and I guess Levi finally felt safe enough to pull out a chair and do the same.

“Just keeping up with support group stuff. Nothing exceptional,” Levi replied. “How have you been doing lately?”

“Me?” As if there was anybody else in the room he could have been asking. “I’ve been fine.”

“Have you?”

“Yeah.” Something about the way he said _Have you?_ made it sound like he didn’t believe me. “It’s all been pretty average. You know, homeschooling, Mikasa, Armin... that sort of thing.”

Levi hummed pensively and took a slow sip of Sprite. “That’s good, I guess.”

“It really never goes any other way.”

“Don’t you ever get bored?”

Alright, that was a surprising question to be hearing from Levi. “N-not really,” I said unsteadily. “I guess I’m just really good at entertaining myself.” A weak laugh slipped out along with the words.

“I find it a little hard to believe that there isn’t anything you do that you haven’t told me about yet,” Levi remarked. “There’s gotta be something. Is that seriously it?”

I shrugged and my face twitched reflexively into an awkward smile. “What am I supposed to say? I’ve told you before, I’m not an interesting person.” The two of us laughed a little, and the tension in the room started to loosen. “What about you? Is there anything you do that I don’t know about?”

Levi blinked, and when his eyes opened again they were a fraction of an inch wider and staring at me in what might have been surprise. The look only existed for a second, and in that very same one it disappeared. “No,” he said calmly. “I always keep busy. Probably more so than is good for me. But it keeps me out of trouble, so I suppose it can’t be that bad.”

He paused and some shameless part of me wanted to ask _What kind of trouble?_ , but he started speaking again before I could open my mouth and let that shred of stupidity escape.

“Listen, Eren, there was something that I’ve been meaning to ask you this whole time.”

My heart skipped at the sound of the words. A dreadful, exhilaratingly cold feeling began pooling in my insides. I realized all of a sudden that he hadn’t used my pet name once during this entire exchange. Whatever he was here for, it was serious. Exactly what kind of serious remained to be seen, but there was only one way I could find out.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I want to know if you’re still okay,” Levi asked gently. “Emotionally, I mean.”

His voice sounded the same way it had all the times he had pulled confessions out of me before. I tightened my grip on my Sprite can to get rid of the tremble in my fingers. “Why are you asking something like that?”

“Because I’m concerned about you,” he said. “We both remember what happened last time we lost a member of the group.”

“And you want to make sure it doesn’t happen again?”

Levi nodded. “It was Hanji’s idea, really. She loves getting personal with the group, and she thought, since we apparently _know each other so well_...” He trailed off and sighed. “She didn’t make me come here tonight, if that’s what you’re thinking. I had the time, so I did.”

“Well, it was nice of you, but I’m doing fine. You really didn’t have to.”

Okay, that sounded a lot more standoffish than it had in my head.

“No offense, brat, but you’ve got a few issues with coping with things like this.”

Ah, there it was.

“I know, but I’m getting better about it. I think I learned my lesson last time.”

“I’m not asking you to learn a lesson. I’m making sure you’re okay so that you don’t have another breakdown.”

“Well, breaking news. I’m not going to.”

“Don’t make promises you aren’t sure you can keep, brat.”

“Who says I can’t?”

“Please don’t argue this point with me.”

“Why shouldn’t I? Since you apparently know so much about me, then you should know that I don’t like being treated like a head case. You started all of this anyway. It wasn’t like anyone told you to come here.”

My own words were starting to make me sick. I had no idea what I was saying, but I kept talking anyway.

“Eren, the way you were dealing with Ymir’s death wasn’t healthy,” Levi said flatly. His gaze remained steadily locked with mine. I didn’t know how he was staying so calm, because I sure as hell wasn’t.

“I know that. And I already told you, it’s not going to happen again.”

“Did you tell anyone the truth about why it upset you so much? Because you never told me.”

“It was too personal! Christ, Levi, do you have to know everything?”

“You don’t have to get defensive about it.”

“And what the hell should I do?” I shot back, borderline shouting the words. My chair scraped gratingly against the tiles as I reflexively stood up.

“Not this,” Levi said. “Eren, you need to calm down.”

There were a million things he wanted to say behind those few words. I could hear it in his voice. All the same, I found myself taking a step back and dropping my gaze to the floor.

“I-I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I didn’t mean to... I just need a second, okay?” I backed away from the table and leaned against the counter. My heart was beating too fast. Something was wrong, even if I couldn’t put a name to it. Fear, hesitation, my own egocentric self-righteousness, a stupid crush that just wouldn’t die no matter how many times I tried to kill it. It could have been anything, but all I knew was that it was driving me insane.

I raked my fingers through my bangs and took a deep breath with my palm pressed to my forehead. I heard Levi’s chair scraping back, and before I knew it he was standing beside me again. I pulled my hand away from my face to find his eyes on mine again.

“Why do you keep putting up with me?” I asked for no reason.

“Because I care about you, you little shit.”

He might as well have shoved me to the floor and kicked me square in the face. It probably would have shocked me less than putting those words all together in the same sentence. 

Minus the _you little shit_  part, maybe, but that didn’t change what he meant.

“Let’s go back to the living room,” he suggested after realizing that I wasn’t going to respond to him anytime soon. “Kitchen table feels a little too formal, I think.”

I couldn’t do much other than agree. We grabbed the cans of Sprite that we had taken out and left for a more comfortable setting. Things calmed down pretty quickly after that. We sat side by side on the couch, talking about recent events, how they made us feel, things like that. I did most of the talking when it came to feelings. It only made sense, since Levi had come with the intention of asking about them.

Talking to him didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. As it turned out, some of the nonsense I had been spitting at Levi in the kitchen turned out to be true. I was doing better. Not so much better that he wasn’t concerned anymore, but better.

“You have a nice Christmas tree,” Levi pointed out all of a sudden.

“Thanks,” I said, a little bewilderedly. “Armin came over to help us put it up.”

“Really?” He studied the plastic foliage and messy distribution of rainbow lights that were still a little tangled after being pulled out of the box they were shoved haphazardly into the year before. “That’s nice.”

“Have you started decorating your place yet?” There was no real reason for me to be asking the question. It just felt natural. Maybe I thought that since my family had finally gotten into the holiday spirit, everyone else in the world had, too.

“No,” he said. I started a little at his reply. The answer had come out so easily. Before I could ask why, he added, “It’s late. I should really get going.”

I choked back the question I’d had in mind and replied with a soft “Okay.”

Neither of us said very much as I led Levi back to the front door that was about fifteen feet away and he returned his shoes and jacket to their rightful places. I pulled the door open for him and saw that there was an inch of snow piled up on the ground. Levi’s feet forged a clear path through the icy white dust when he stepped outside. He stopped and turned around to face me. I stared at him for a second before I saw that he was standing with his arms opened and reaching slightly toward me.

“Do you want to...” he started to ask.

A smile broke out on my face and I stepped outside to accept his offer. My arms wound around his shoulders and waist and I pulled him close to my chest. Warmth flared up in my core, a sharp contrast to the snow and frozen patio stones beneath my bare feet. I held on for a few seconds before I was willing to let him go.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” he said.

“Okay,” I murmured in reply. He turned away, and I reluctantly closed the door behind him. After leaning against the door long enough to berate myself for melting so easily in his hands, I regained the good sense to look at a clock. The time reading on the cable box said it was nine fifty-something, just short of ten.

He had stayed for an hour and a half. Not one or two, like he had said over the phone, but falling directly in the middle. Strangely enough, I felt like that was exactly as long as I had needed him to be there.

I went back upstairs after locking up and turning the lights off in all of the rooms Levi and I had moved through. I stopped by my Dad’s room to say goodnight, and he wanted to know if anything had happened, since he thought he heard fighting downstairs. I told him it was no big deal, and I could only assume that his suspicions that I had confessed my undying... _like_ for Levi were proven still untrue. I spent a few habitual minutes cleaning myself up for the night, then dropped into bed in my boxers. It wasn’t worth the effort to put on pajamas anymore. I was too exhausted.

As I fell asleep, all I could think about was the visit. I remembered Levi’s face, the concern written into it. I remembered his voice. It was soft, coaxing, commanding in the gentle way that only he could be. More than anything, I remembered his words. _I care about you, you little shit._

That was the night that I finally gave up.

Levi Ackerman had caught me, and I would never escape.

 

* * *

 

Four AM. I don’t know why my phone was on. It was running out of battery life before I had gone to bed. I had been too lazy to plug it in, and similarly too lazy to get out of bed to turn the volume down to silent. I had simply left it to sit on my dresser for the night, resolving to plug it in as soon as I woke up the next morning.

As it turned out, my phone was the first one to wake up. I did the same a few seconds later, then wasted a few more rubbing my eyes and groping for the obnoxiously ringing thing wherever I happened to have left it. I dragged it over to my bed and shined the blinding screen light directly onto my face. I saw the time reading, groaned and pressed the answer button without bothering with the caller ID. “Hngello?” I grumbled.

“Eren?”

I blinked. It was Armin. “Armin, what are you doing awake at four in the morning?” I asked blearily. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, I think so,” he said. Something sounded wrong with his voice. “Annie just texted me.”

I was too out of it to even make a joke. “What did she say?”

“Bertolt’s dead.”

And that was it.

The world stopped spinning for a second. Time slowed down, the earth’s crust shivered, and my bed dropped out from under me. Then all of a sudden everything was back in motion, and realism broke through my bedroom window like a wayward baseball and hit me in the face.

“What?”

I hadn’t needed to ask. I had heard him the first time.

“It happened about an hour ago,” Armin explained. He knew that I already understood. “There were too many mets for the chemo to do anything. His body just couldn’t take it anymore. Annie was at the hospital with Reiner when it happened.”

A few seconds that felt like an eternity passed by between his words and the next ones that came out of my mouth. I hadn’t missed the dangerous waver in his voice when he told me what had happened. “Did she tell you anything else?” I asked.

“No,” Armin breathed. The word registered on my end and I could envision his face. It was crumpled, streaked with saltwater, his wide blue eyes spilling over with tears, lips trembling as he spoke to me.

“Oh.” I hoped he could hear the sadness in the few words I said. “Listen, I... we should probably both be getting back to sleep. If you can’t... you can call me again, if you need to. Tell Annie that I’m thinking of her and Reiner. Bertolt, too,” I added. “Especially him, alright?”

“I will,” he listlessly agreed.

“Think you can try to get some sleep?”

“I’ll try.”

“Remember, I’m here if you can’t.”

“Okay.”

His voice broke, and I whispered goodnight to him before letting my thumb fall limply onto the screen and end the conversation. Guilt stabbed and twisted my insides, and I wished that I could have stayed on the phone longer, maybe could have been a better friend for him. I knew I couldn’t. Instead I had to collapse back onto my mattress, clutch a pillow to my chest and eke out an slow, agonized sigh.

 _It was coming_ , I told myself. _You knew it was coming all along_.

Bertolt was dead. He was gone. He’d faced down the monsters taking over his body and he had been lost in the battle. He would never come back to another meeting, never drape his arms over any of our shoulders again, never show off his surgery scars again, never make out with Reiner and not care who the hell was watching...

 _Reiner_. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how he must have felt.

I clutched the pillow tighter. A shudder ran through my ribs.

Armin never called me again that night. And he didn’t really need to.

Bertolt was dead.

Schrodinger's support group had completed yet another successful experiment. Too bad that success had to be so fucking devastating.

 

* * *

 

I didn’t go to Bertolt’s funeral.

It took place a week after the announcement was made. On December sixteenth, One month and eight days after the first signs of his reoccurrence were discovered, Bertolt Hoover lost his four-year battle with osteosarcoma. The eulogy went something like that. I read it on the e-vite that his family had sent out to all his friends and the distant family that hadn’t heard the news already.

I never bothered responding to the email. I’ve always hated funerals. I understood that they were meant to commemorate the deceased, to celebrate the memory of their life or some sentimental bullshit like that. I only ever saw them as reminders of what was coming next for all of us.

Funerals did nothing for the dead. They only existed so the living could feel better about the fact that a person once present in their lives would never be seen again outside of their photographs.

It was another situation that I relied on Armin to give me the details on. He held nothing back when he filled me in, not even the tears that I had to help him clean up afterwards. Reiner had brought his whole family, brother and sister included. They had all given his boyfriend a fond farewell like one of their own. Bertolt also had a cancer-free sister who I had never heard of named Amy. She had gone to everyone during the funeral asking about what they remembered about her brother, then after the service and before the burial she had gone off to another floor of the funeral home with Reiner and Annie to collapse and sob their sorrows out together. Armin had stood at the end of a chain with the three of them while they lowered Bertolt’s casket into the ground, Annie clinging to his hand so hard that her nails left marks in his skin. The rest of the kids in the group had showed up for the burial, and once the ceremony was over, they all gathered at the cemetery gate and cried out whatever grief hadn’t been squeezed out of them already.

I felt bad for keeping my distance when Armin told me the story. But if I had gone, I wasn’t sure that I would have made the whole experience any better. After all, death is death, and a funeral is a funeral.

The December schedule hadn’t been made with the anticipation of the Youth Cancer Support Group losing another member over the course of the month. A meeting at Beans fell directly on the twenty-second, the day after Bertolt’s bittersweet Festival of Tears. It left next to no time for anyone to recuperate.

I forced myself to show up, but it wasn’t that surprising when I walked in and found barely anyone there.

Gathered at a table in the back of the cafe were Levi, Hanji, and only a small fraction of the most resolute (or codependent, either one) members of the group. Marco sat Jean-less next to Armin, both of them with their hands wrapped around a cup of gingerbread hot chocolate. Mikasa happened to be free to come with me, and I instinctively grabbed her sleeve to find some kind of stability.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, even though I knew well enough where the rest of the group was.

“Most of them weren’t ready to face another meeting, I guess,” she murmured to me. We approached the table, and she offered everyone a sympathetic smile. “Hey, guys.”

“Hi,” Hanji said. She looked up at us and tried to respond with her usual liveliness, but her enthusiasm had been shot down for the time being.

“Small group today, huh?” For some reason I thought that there was nothing better to do than state the obvious.

Levi glanced at me, looking almost disappointed. “Yeah. Keen observation, brat.”

Even a comment as deadpan as that one felt a little comforting, coming from him.

Mikasa left to order a drink for the both of us, since it seemed that everyone else in the group had gotten one. I sat patiently and waited for a conversation to start. But nothing did, not even after Mikasa came back with a pair of gingerbread mochas and set one in front of me.

We sat together in silence for an indeterminate amount of time, no one willing to do much more than take a sip of their drink every now and again.

Eventually Levi spoke up. “You know, one of us is going to have to come out and say it sometime.”

“Say what?” Hanji said innocently, sounding uncharacteristically tired. When no one else was willing to answer, Armin decided to chime in.

“Bertolt is gone. We’re never going to see him again.”

“I know,” Marco said quietly. “I don’t like thinking about it, but that’s the way it is. It’s probably best to just face it realistically.”

“Probably,” Mikasa agreed.

I felt the torch was being passed to me, so I let slip the first thing that came to mind. “I know it’s sad, but when you think about it, it’s the way things end for all of us, isn’t it? And if some of us get it out of the way earlier than others-”

“Eren, can you please not?” Armin cut in. I looked over at him, and a hot feeling of humiliation crawled up the back of my neck.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “It just hurts too much to think about it any other way.”

Marco slid his hand across the table and rested it on mine. “It’s okay,” he said, offering me a soft smile. I switched focus to him and noticed how sad and empty his eyes were. I couldn’t shake the familiarity. I had seen the expression before, but never on him. He had the face of someone who thought of death on a daily basis. It didn’t seem right for Marco, but there it was.

“Thanks,” I mumbled. I flipped my hand over to give his a quick squeeze and drew it back to my side of the table. I’d recently developed a bit of a reservation about hand-holding.

The circle opened up a little more after that, but not much. Conversation was sporadic, and after the drinks were all empty, no one wanted to stay any longer. Marco was the first to leave, and Armin offered to bring Mikasa and me home. We accepted, left the table for the space by the front door, and a few minutes later, my best friend and best sister had started up a distracting discussion with Hanji.

Levi and I were left alone, as had been happening a lot lately. Neither of us said much. Instead he kept his hands stuck in his coat pockets, studying the people in the cafe while I stood nearby and studied his face. If there was anything behind his usual mask, I couldn’t figure out what it was. Something hinted to me that he was handling the whole situation in relatively the same way that I was.

“Is that how you really think of it, Eren?” he asked all of a sudden.

“Think of what?” I replied as if we had been talking about this all along.

“Do you think that’s all death is?” he elaborated. “That it’s just an ending? It happens, then the world moves on and that’s it?”

“Not always.” It sounded so much colder when he phrased it like that. “I know it’s not really like that. I just think of it that way to make myself feel better.”

“Denying the fact that there are reactions and repercussions is comfortable to you?”

“Only as long as the reactions aren’t mine,” I said definitively.

Levi didn’t meet my eyes for a single second of the conversation. He stared off into the distance, looking intensely meditative before slowly nodding his head. “Alright. If that’s what makes you feel better,” he said. “Just remember one thing, okay, brat?”

“What is it?”

“You can’t live that way forever. Eventually it’s going to come back and bite you. Just keep that in mind next time something like this happens.”

I’d never heard him say anything that made any less sense. “How is that supposed to help me?”

“Not sure,” he admitted. “It helped me, though. When it had to.” He straightened up from leaning against the shop window and finally allowed me the privilege of looking into his eyes.

“You know why everyone was missing today?” I asked.

“Because they’re just like you, brat,” he said. “When reality gets brutal, they don’t want to face it.”

The conversation was cut short when Armin announced that he saw his grandpa’s Accord sitting outside. I had to hug Hanji before I left, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself until I saw her again. Levi caught my attention one last time before I walked out the door. “I’ll see you soon, okay?” I called back to him.

“Okay,” he responded.

His last _okay_ rang in my ears as I walked out and climbed into the Arlert Accord. It was the only thing that made me feel like I had done enough to let myself leave.

Levi was right. I didn’t like to face reality. That was the reason why I was still letting myself fall for him, hard and fast.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sincerely sorry. I hope you'll still be able to function after reading this chapter.  
> But seriously, thank you. Thank you for sticking it out and following this story. It's been almost an entire year since I posted the first chapter. In that time, I feel like I've changed as a writer. My readers have been nothing but supportive through all of it. They sat through my tragic backstories, my awkward paragraphs, grammatical errors, medical inaccuracies, my whiny author's rants, and ones that drag on for way too long, kind of like this one is right now.  
> I want to thank everyone for helping me to breach 1500 views. Here's to hoping for 1500 more.  
> See you next chapter.


	18. Christmas, Love Stories And Other Poorly Timed Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a year. I'm still publishing chapters. *pops open a champagne bottle* Celebration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween (almost). It's me again. No, I'm not gone yet. Far from it.  
> Well, here we are. As of today, TMIU has been published on the internet for an entire year. Last April, one of my friends convinced me that the dumb and upsetting idea to write a TFIOS-Attack on Titan crossover actually wasn't that dumb, although it still was pretty upsetting. On October tenth last year, I decided that the first few chapters were good enough for me to post the story online. Now, over 1800 AO3 hits, about five tumblr posts and a lot of motivational comments later, I'm still writing this clusterfuck of a fanfiction.  
> No, I'm still not finished with it. And at the rate it's going, I might not be for another year. But who really cares? More time for this emotional disaster story to develop a fandom of its own!  
> Between the start and the story in its current state, there have been a lot of rough patches. I had more than one existential crisis, deleted my author blog and repeatedly almost gave up on finishing the story. And it's still not finished. But I haven't stopped working on it, and that's what actually matters at this point, right?  
> Now, before I drag out this gut-spilling author's note any further, I want to make an announcement. I probably won't be posting another chapter until about December. For some dumb reason, I decided it was a good idea to start publishing a story that begins at the beginning of the summer in the middle of autumn. Now I'm going to have to delay new updates for a while, not only because I need time to write more, but also to match up the story a little better with current events. People might like reading a Christmas chapter better when it's, you know, actually Christmas.  
> Thanks again to my irl friends and betas who have put up with my demands every few weeks to read another chapter of my bullshit before i post it, usually only a day in advance. I especially want to thank frozenheart23 for their commentary on all the chapters. Your thoughts and opinions are literally one of the greatest reasons why I want to keep writing this story.  
> If you've been ghost reading this story up to this point, I'm going to have to ask you to leave a comment or something, just to let me know you're here. You really have no idea how much it helps. You should know that fanfiction writers like me are disgusting thirsty attention whores who thrive off the approval of their viewers. Even better, you could follow me on tumblr at the-angstiest-author. Reblog my posts. Leave me an ask. Are you in the mood to do any of those things? Good. Do them.  
> And, if it wouldn't kill you, you can post about this story and tag it with "fic: the monsters inside us" or "fic: tmiu." I track both. Do you feel like doing that instead of leaving a review? You want to do both? Fantastic. Go right ahead.  
> Jebus, this is probably the longest author's note I've left in a while.  
> I'm going to stop now before I take up half the page with my improvised keyboard smashing and get tp the keyboard smashing that's actually been read and edited. You should know what I always say next.  
> Story time.

It was too soon after Bertolt’s funeral for anyone in the Youth Cancer Support Group to change how they felt. Blinking lights, new-fallen snow and carols playing almost everywhere you go don’t really help much when just four days earlier, you watched one of your friends get lowered into the ground.

Or known that it had happened, since you couldn’t handle being around to see it for yourself.

You know that the time is supposed to be a happy one. Everyone around you is excited and smiling. So you try to smile back, but the sentiment just doesn’t reach deep enough. No one in the YCSG was able to do it. Neither was I. But time always marches on, whether you want it to or not.

So Christmas Eve arrived without mercy.

 

* * *

 

The Youth Cancer Support Group always got together and did something fun for Christmas, or so Hanji had told me before what had happened earlier in December had happened. I had been sort of excited about it (probably more than _sort of_ ), although I had no idea what _something fun_ entailed when it came to Hanji. But judging by the fact that the whole group was involved, it probably lived up at least adequately to the hype that Hanji put into it. I guessed that it was just an extra-special meeting, similar to the others but less focused on therapy and more on fun.

That was the theory I had in mind when I received this text from her while sitting in my room on December twenty-third.

**New Message from: HellPN**

**Hey everyone! In light of current events, Im not so sure how well this will go over, but traditions are traditions. The annual YCSG Christmas party is happening on December 24th at Levis! Address is 104 Prometheus Drive. Party starts at 6pm, end time still in the works. Respond if youre interested.**

I stared at my phone and re-read the message about twelve times over, wondering what the hell had gotten into her. Obviously no one would be in the mood to go to a party a few days after a funeral. I thought that the group’s last sad attempt at a meeting would have proven that well enough.

I locked my phone and tossed it on my bed. Like hell anyone would respond to a party invitation at a time like this.

Two minutes later, my phone vibrated again. As it turned out, the invitation had been a blast text and now a group chat had constructed itself in my inbox. And Connie had just replied to it.

**Stonnie: Sounds cool. I can probably come.**

I read the response a few times over, then locked my phone and dropped it again. _Well, that’s just Connie_ , I thought. _I’ve hardly ever seen him upset. I guess it makes sense if he bounces back so fast_.

My phone buzzed again before I could finish the thought.

**HellPN: Fantastic!**

_Okay. That’s just one person._

I didn’t think anyone else would respond to the group message. Then my phone vibrated again after a few minutes had passed. I ignored it at first. There couldn’t have been that many people who wanted to come. But when it had gone off I-can’t-even-remember-how-many-more times in the next fifteen minutes, I was forced to check it, if only to see what the hell was going on. I unlocked my phone and opened my inbox to find that there was an entire conversation underway.

**Freckled Jesus: i’d love to come.**

**Seabiscuit Scumbag Kirschtein: I think I’m free that day. I’ll check to see if I am.**

**HellPN: Great cant wait to see you guys!**

**Coconut: i think i can go. sounds fun!! :)**

**HellPN: We would love to have you there Armin**

**Potato Queen: I can probably go. How long is it going to be?**

**Seabiscuit Scumbag Kirschtein: Yeah I am free christmas eve. Parents are having a dinner, but I don’t have to be there.**

**HellPN: Theres no set end time. We r winging it for now**

**HellPN: Ok Jean, youre on the list!**

So almost the entire group was coming. That was unexpected, to say the least. I was starting to think that maybe Hanji’s ideas weren’t really so terrible. It was just dawning on me that Levi was supposed to be hosting this party but wasn’t managing the invitation chat when my phone shivered again, this time in the palm of my hand. It seemed to be just as surprised by the next message that appeared in the group chat as I was.

**The Quiet One: i think i can go**

_What?_

I had to blink a few times to make sure I wasn’t misreading the contact name. Next to Reiner, she had been one of the people worst damaged by Bertolt’s death. If that was still the case, why would she want to-

**Armadillo Warrior: I can probably make it. Might be a little late but I think I can**

Well, that settled it. The entire support group was going, even the ones who I had assumed were emotionally destroyed. I was the only one missing. If I didn’t respond now, things might end up messy, especially since Levi had now officially taken it upon himself to make sure that I was actually getting better in the care of the YCSG. I hesitantly tapped the screen of my phone to open up a new message and started thinking about my response. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. Twice the screen nearly went dark while I sat there thinking. Finally. I pressed my thumbs to the tiny keyboard and-

“Hey, Eren, did you get Hanji’s message?” Mikasa said out of the bright fucking blue. I was so startled when I spun around to face her that I nearly threw my phone at her head.

“Y-yeah, I did,” I stammered. “Do... do you want to go?”

She shrugged, still leaning against the doorframe, her own phone grasped in one hand. Her eyes fixed expectantly on me. “I dunno. Do you?” she prompted.

I had no idea what kind of answer she was looking to get out of me. “I... not sure, I was thinking... it looks like everyone else... Maybe. Probably. I don’t know.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure either,” Mikasa said. “It might be a little toxic there, what with everything that’s happened. I don’t know why they’re still trying to have a party when everybody’s depressed.” She paused, then looked to me and added, “Come to think of it, I was kind of wondering why they decided to host the thing at Levi’s place.”

Right about then, it hit me. “That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know, Eren,” she replied innocently. “Why don’t you ask your morning wood?”

“What my dick does while I sleep is none of your business,” I grumbled, my face burning.

“Then let it stay out of this. Do you want to go or not?”

“I’m trying to ask you the same question.”

“Think of it this way: would Dad say yes if he knew you were going to be partying at the residence of the overage guy who he already knows you _sort of want to get with_?”

I was starting to get tired of all her waffley bullshit. “Okay, either you want to go, or you don’t. Which is it?”

Mikasa glared at me and slumped over, seeming disappointed. “I’m busy Christmas Eve, and I don’t want you to go over there and do something stupid.”

I waited for her to say more, but she never did. “Is that it?”

Pretty much. One of my friends is having everyone come over to her place for dinner that night, and I’ve already got the whole thing planned out with Dad. I can’t change my plans around the day before.”

“Then I can get a ride from Armin and he can keep tabs on me during the party. I think I can manage on my own for one night.”

“Around the guy you so desperately want to bang?”

“Mikasa, I’ve told you already, it’s not like that anymore.”

“Did your morning wood tell you that?”

“Goodbye, Mikasa,” I said definitively. I flopped over on my bed and rolled to face the wall. I heard her leave my door a moment later, then her bare feet padded down the hallway and her own bedroom door swung shut. It was only then that I felt safe enough to send in my reply.

**Me: Sounds fun. I’ll be there**

Mikasa’s response popped up a second later.

**Best Sister: I’m gonna be busy that night. Sorry -_-**

Hanji replied to the both of us within a minute.

**HellPN: Yay thanks for joining Eren!**

****HellPN: Mikasa Im sorry to hear that :( Next time then** **

With not a moment to spare after I read the messages and locked my phone, Mikasa was back in my doorway. “So it’s settled, then. You’re going?”

“Yeah. You saw the messages.”

“You probably should have asked Dad first. Just saying.”

“I’ll ask him when he’s home. If he says no, then I can just get back to Hanji and tell her I can’t come.”

“You don’t have to wait for him. He has the ability to text, you know.”

“Fine,” I agreed. “I should probably get it out of the way as soon as I can anyway.” Mikasa left, satisfied with my communication skills, and I sent my dad a message that went something like this.

******Me: Hi dad. The group is having a party tomorrow for Christmas. It starts at 6. Armin’s grandpa can take me. Is it ok if I go?******

That text, as I should have guessed, turned into a phone call. My dad grilled me with questions. When was the party supposed to end? When would Mr. Arlert be picking me up? Who else was going? What was I going to be doing there? As soon as I told him where the party would be, there was audible hesitation coming through in his voice. I assured him more than was probably necessary that I wouldn’t be alone. If the worst happened, Armin was more than capable of taking my phone and notifying him of whatever disaster I happened to have brought upon myself. Once I added Armin to the equation, my dad seemed to calm down a little. After a whole twenty minutes of debating the issue, he finally gave me permission. The only condition was that he insisted on bringing me, since he would be heading out of the house around then anyway. His lab firm was hosting a party of its own. He had been contemplating whether or not he would go to, and now that I had something to do, the issue was finally settled.

The conversation ended at that. I didn’t realize until afterward that my dad’s words had some heavy implications in them. If I hadn’t brought up the party at Levi’s, there was a chance that he would have given up a pretty big social event with his coworkers to... I hadn’t been able to figure it out that far. But the most likely option seemed to be that he would have skipped out on the office party to spend the evening with me.

I didn’t linger on the subject for too long. After all, I had a party to get to the next night, and I was going to need a few things that I had only thought about in theory before.

All I had to do now was figure out a way to get to Target in the next twenty-four hours.

 

* * *

********  
** **

The first half of Christmas Eve passed pretty slowly.

It didn’t seem that way at first. I woke up late, and had a momentary panic attack over the fact that I only had about eight hours until the party and hadn’t done a single thing that I had been hoping to do the night before. Then I ventured out into the house to find that my dad was home for the day. It turned out that he had decided to take a small vacation for the stretch of days between Christmas and New Year’s. It was his coworkers’ decision more than his own, he told me. (Big surprise there. I was sure that most of them had a better relationship with him than I did. They probably knew all about him and his personal life. Maybe the were worried about his stress levels or something.)

I let him know how much I appreciated his presence by immediately asking him to take me out to get a few things for the night. He agreed to do it, of course. Because if dads don’t provide for their kids, then what are they even for?

His words, not mine. I swear.

I spent the rest of the day digging wrapping materials out of the storage closet in the basement and putting together a small arsenal of little packages. I had an uncontrollable urge to prove to the group that I was worth inviting to their parties. It left me feeling determined to give them all something, even if most of the somethings were cheap and probably a little uncreative. But it was the holiday season. People always give gifts around then. It just felt right.

I packed my collection of presents into a bag while my dad finished suiting up for his office party. To my surprise, he was pretty talkative with me while we drove to Levi’s, only stopping whenever the GPS on his phone interrupted us to give him another direction. As it turned out, there wasn’t anything new or interesting in either of our lives. It didn’t matter all that much. The conversation only had to last us about fifteen minutes anyway.

The GPS led us into a small development of garden apartments on the other side of Shiganshina. It was too far for me to have walked, in spite of Shiganshina being a pretty small town. I didn’t recall ever having seen the place before. The buildings in the development looked kind of like oversized houses, built out of faded brick and with way more doors than was reasonable. Each door had its own color, as if that was supposed to set it apart from the others and make it unique, when in reality just a few doors down there was another one just like it. The place itself didn’t look all that bad, but something about it seemed a little... I don’t know, rock-bottom. It looked like a place that people only lived in because they were planning on moving out soon.

The GPS stopped my dad’s Highlander in front of a navy blue door in a building with bricks of a muddy, khaki-brown color. The number on the tarnished metal mailbox next to the door had the number 104 displayed on it in polished brass.

“I guess this is the place,” I said.

“Doesn’t look too bad,” my dad replied. “A little small, maybe, but that’s probably only because he lives alone. I’ve got to wonder how he’s planning on fitting the whole support group in there, though.”

“There aren’t as many people as there used to be, Dad.” My voice sounded hollow when I said it.

My dad glanced nervously at the steering wheel and cleared his throat. “Oh. Well... I...”

“It’s alright,” I assured him. At least then he felt safe enough to look back at me.

“Have fun, alright?” he said. “And remember to let me know when you get home. I’ll probably be out later than you. Alright?”

“I will,” I replied as I clicked free of my seat belt and pushed the door open. “Thanks for bringing me here. See you tomorrow, Dad.”

“See you soon. Have a good time,” he responded. And then, out of nowhere, he added, “I love you.”

I stopped right where I was, the car door half closed and my foot already twisted to turn me around. I met his gaze with mine and offered him a small, heartened smile. “I love you too, Dad.”

My dad beamed back at me, then the car door fell shut and I was heading up to Levi’s front door while my last living parent drove away. As soon as he was gone, I felt my nerves rush to their edges. I tried as hard as I could to forget about it and pressed the doorbell. I noticed a familiar shitty Neon and Hanji’s little navy sedan scooted into parking spaces nearby. I heard footsteps stamping out a fast, muffled rhythm, and a second later, the door in front of me swung open. Hanji’s grinning, four-eyed face appeared in the doorway. “Merry Christmas!”

Her holiday spirit was too infectious for me to resist. “Merry Christmas,” I replied, my face pulling up into a smile.

Without a second to spare, she lunged through the door and pulled me into a deathly-tight hug. “You took so long to respond to the invite. I was starting to think you weren’t going to come.”

“It was only half an hour. That wasn’t actually long enough to make you worry, was it?”

Hanji reluctantly let me go and opened her mouth to respond, but a shout from inside interrupted. “Hey, shitty glasses, can you bring the new guest in and stop letting the heat out? I don’t want to get my rent raised.”

The smile that was already making my cheeks hurt tugged the corners of my mouth even higher. Hanji spun around to scamper back into the building, and I raced after her. As soon as I entered the apartment, the smells of rosemary, parmesan, cinnamon and sugar hit me like an overwhelming wall of deliciousness. My heart was pounding for some unidentifiable, completely identifiable reason. I could feel blood fluttering in my veins. I chalked it all up to the party and secondhand excitement from Hanji and moved on to exploring what I could see of Levi’s apartment.

The place was pretty small as far as housing goes, but a relatively good size for one person, especially one who had been a student only a few years earlier. The entryway was tiny, no bigger than a walk-in closet with a door on my right and a staircase just past it. A bit further on it opened up into a mediocre-sized living room. Every last inch of it was clean, almost to the point of looking sterilized. Not that I would have expected any less from Levi.

The living room had a decently-sized flatscreen TV on top of a small IKEA shelf jammed into the corner. A secondhand-looking couch was pushed up against the wall, a secondhand-looking coffee table sat the middle of the room, a sliding screen door with a tiny, snow-covered concrete patio out back. A few support groupies were scattered around the room, and just beyond them there was even a little evergreen tree in the corner next to the TV, hastily strung with white lights and a small silver star perched at the top. I ran to my friends and earned enthusiastic holiday greetings from whoever was willing to give them. That didn’t include everyone, but I didn’t find the fact surprising at all.

It took me a second to notice, but I realized that Hanji hadn’t come with me to see the rest of the group. I looked back to where I had come from and noticed something I hadn’t before. There was a huge block missing from the wall behind the living room. It looked kind of like an oversized take-out window. On the other side there was a small kitchen where three people were rushing around, bumping into one another, trying to get something done with not enough time left to do it. I recognized a cap of golden blonde in the mix and rushed back to the entrance to find the doorway that I had somehow missed in passing the first time.

“Hey, you guys need a hand in here, or is there not enough space for me?” I asked as I leaned in.

Armin was the first one to notice me. “Eren!” he squealed. He had flour smeared on his ugly Christmas sweater and hands, but he didn’t think twice about scampering over and giving me a tight, affectionate hug. “Merry Christmas!”

I laughed weakly, my chest half-crushed by his skinny arms. “Merry Christmas to you, too, Armin.” He pulled back, and I grinned at him. “It smells fantastic in here. What are you making?”

“Well, we’re... we’re only making dessert, really,” he said embarrassedly, nodding towards a few boxes and paper bags sitting on the counter. “Gingerbread, sugar cookies, candy cane brownies... you know, holiday stuff. The others were helping earlier, but we’re just about finished now.”

“Guess I’m a bit late, then,” I said before pulling away from him and turning to look around the room. Unlike the rest of the house, the group had managed to make a decent mess of the kitchen. Judging by the chaos, I guessed that Levi probably wasn’t a big fan of guests. I didn’t think much of it as I spied the back of his raven-black head from across the room. I snuck up behind him and tapped his shoulder. He turned around and glanced up at my face. I saw surprise register in his sharp eyes a second before I flung myself at him, wrapping him up in a hug imbued with as much holiday cheer as I could put into it. “Merry Christmas, Levi.”

My ex-nurse squirmed a little and made an awkward noise of discomfort before giving up and deciding to hug me back. “O-okay, merry Christmas to you, too, brat,” he choked out. I took that as my cue to let go, and he straightened himself back out as soon as I did. He was wearing an apron over his ever-present green flannel, obsessive clean freak that he was. He glanced down at my chest and smirked. “Shit. I got you all floury.”

I laughed and brushed myself off. “It’s fine. You’re probably not the first,” I replied, flicking my eyes back at Armin, who was currently trying to clean flour stains out from the fibers of his sweater.

“So...” he mused, turning back to the counter to finish arranging fresh cookies on a plate. “This is where I live.”

“It’s pretty nice,” I replied.

“Honestly, I’m surprised everyone can fit in here. Normally Hanji hosts this thing at her parents’ house, but they had their own event planned for tonight, so...” He trailed off and flicked his hand in a there-you-have-it gesture.

“Still, I’m honestly pretty impressed that you could handle this by yourself.”

“I’m not doing it _all_ by myself.” Levi turned around and looked toward Armin and Hanji, now finished with their own tasks and gathering takeout containers to bring into the living room.

“I see you finally got your Christmas tree up,” I said.

“I see you finally got your Christmas tree up,” I said.

“Hm?” Levi glanced over at me, seeming confused.

“The last time I asked, I remember you said you didn’t have one.”

“When?”

“When you came to my house last week. You said you hadn’t started decorating yet.”

“You remember that?” He stared bewilderedly at me for bit, then the memory seemed to come back to him. “Yeah, I... I had work and school and everything else to deal with. I couldn’t find the time. Then I had to find the tree, which I knew I would have a hard time with as it was. Long story short, this was the only one I could fit in the apartment that wouldn’t invade the entire living room.”

Long story short indeed. The tree couldn’t have been more than four feet tall. “I should probably help the others put the food out.”

“Right,” Levi said, a little stiltedly, as if he had been lost in his thoughts. He pushed himself away from the counter, but I put my hand out and caught him by the shoulder.

“You can just hang out here if you’re tired. We’re using your house. I think that’s enough.”

“I’m the host, brat. I’ve got to do _something_ productive.”

I gave up and drew my hand away, my nerves buzzing under the skin where I had touched him. I drowned the feeling out by picking up as many bags as I could (all the rest of them, as it turned out) and carrying them out to the living room. The scalding heat from the containers inside relaxed away the nervous tension in my palm. I set the bags down on the coffee table, where the group was gathering to help arrange the cardboard and foil dishes so they would all fit on the small surface at once.

Levi came out with paper plates under one arm, 2-liter bottles of soda under the other, and plastic cups held in one hand. The lids came off the containers and the overpowering smells of cheese, tomato sauce, rosemary and oregano filled the living room. The admins had ordered takeout from a local pizzeria, and the table was loaded with bowls of pasta, garlic knots, and a few customary salad containers that would probably go untouched. Sasha attacked right away, then the rest of us once she had loaded up her plate.

Much to my surprise, the Youth Cancer Support Group was actually pretty sociable that night. Dinner conversation wasn’t awkward and full of pauses as I had expected it to be. Whoever was still going to school talked about school, Armin had a few stories to share from Rose Community, and Reiner talked about his dickish boss at the sporting goods store. I handed out my bag of cheap, last-minute gifts somewhere in the middle, and a few others in the group did the same. No one mentioned cancer or funerals or anything related to either of those topics. I wondered why, but I could only question it for so long.

“Is anyone in the mood for a game?” Hanji asked after about half an hour of random words being bounced back and forth.

“If it’s the Lying Game again, you can forget it,” Jean snipped right away.

“It’s not the Lying Game!” she affirmed, seeming a little offended. “I was thinking of something a little more normal. Truth or Dare, maybe.”

“That’s hardly any different from the Lying Game,” Levi pointed out. “And if your dares get my place any messier than it already is, _you_ will be the one cleaning it.”

“Okay, okay. Fine. Does Never Have I Ever sound safe enough to you?”

To be honest, I only had a vague idea of how to play Never Have I Ever. All I knew was that it had something to do with having your hands up with your fingers spread out, and you had to tell people about all the objectionable things you’ve done. I had known for a while that Hanji had a strange obsession with digging up obscure and embarrassing facts about people.

My guess wasn’t too far from the truth, as Hanji explained the rules before we started playing. The game was also way less embarrassing than I had previously thought, since other people were guessing at what you did rather than forcing you to tell them yourself. The categories had to get pretty ridiculous in order for us to get some results, which didn’t surprise me. I was a little stunned by the fact that Hanji had done just about everything we could think of. So had Reiner, Connie and Sasha. I kept my fingers held up for almost the entire game. There aren’t very many interesting experiences that someone who had barely left the house for four years could have.

For all its entertainment value, the group got tired of Never Have I Ever relatively quickly. Self-incrimination games aren’t really all that much fun when they’re being played by a bunch of kids who are generally too sick to do risky things. Then the party turned into a more festive version of a normal off-season support group with better food and a different context.

“Guys, I’ve been wondering something,” Armin asked in the middle of the back-and-forth. “Are any of you doing anything interesting over vacation?”

Hanji was the first to jump in. “I had a lot in mind, but I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do. Most of it’s holiday stuff in Sina. There’s always a billion things going on in the city. Then New Year’s with my sorority, probably. Unless Nicole has something else in mind.” She looked pointedly at Jean and grinned.

“Don’t push it,” Jean warningly replied.

“I’ve got pretty much the same thing going on,” Connie quickly added, as if joining the conversation was some kind of race. “It’s mostly family stuff. But first we’re going to visit my grandparents in Pennsylvania. It’s pretty much illegal in my family to miss out on that.”

“Sounds fun,” Reiner said. “I’ll probably just be home for most of the week. I’ve been needing a break from... just about everything, I guess.”

“My dad got a bonus last month, so my family was planning on going to Disney for a few days over the break,” Sasha put in.

“That’s cool,” Marco chimed in. “My parents and I were originally planning on doing that, but I’ve been having too many issues over the past few months, so they decided to stay around here this year.”

I was on the verge of saying _Wow, Marco, thanks for making this way more depressing than it needed to be_ , and I might have actually done it if Jean hadn’t stepped in. “You’re going to that ski lodge upstate, right? In Orvud,” he said brightly. “The really cool resort one, with the indoor pool and everything.”

“Oh, yeah. I hadn’t forgotten about that.” All through the dismal conversation, he had continued to smile. “I am pretty excited about it, I guess.”

“What about you, Seabiscuit?” Levi asked. “You have any plans?”

If Jean had noticed Levi’s use of his nickname, he didn’t act like it. “I’m going with him,” he said definitively, bumping his shoulder against Marco’s. “My family’s not big on doing stuff together, so... I’m kind of jumping in with his.”

Apparently Jean was rich enough to have a mansion and throw massive parties on a regular basis, but not rich enough to go on family vacations. My guess was that he freeloaded from Marco’s home life on a regular basis. _Well, that’s just fine and fucking dandy for you, Jean_.

“Since you’re asking,” Jean continued, “what are you doing for Christmas, Levi?”

Levi was quiet for a second before he responded, “Nothing.”

The room paused, then Armin repeated the single word, as if he hadn’t understood what it meant when Levi had said it the first time. “Nothing?”

“Well, not completely nothing,” my ex-nurse went on. “I’ve got a few assignments to work on, and I’m planning on going into work for a few days, but, really, I’ve got nothing else going on.”

Armin stared at him, then responded, “Oh.” He turned to Annie. “You want to, um... write down for the group what you’re going to do over the holidays?”

She nodded, but I didn’t pay much attention when she gave her answer. Instead I watched Levi, his words- more accurately, his one word- playing on repeat in my head. _Nothing_. His answer wasn’t much different from the one that Reiner had given. But Reiner was doing nothing on purpose. He needed a break. Levi was doing nothing because his vacation was going to be no different from his everyday life. He would just keep working. His spare time would go into hours at the hospital.

He would never stop.

He wouldn’t be going anywhere. He wouldn’t be spending time with anyone.

_Why, though? Doesn’t he have people in his life who want to see him? Doesn’t he have a family?_

His answer probably bothered me more than it should have. Only Armin trying to clandestinely get my attention by tapping me and murmuring my name could pull me out of my stupor.

“Eren. Hey, Eren.”

My head whipped around and I looked at him. “Huh?”

“Are you okay?”

It took longer than it should have for the words to register. “Y-yeah, I’m fine... I think.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, I... I don’t think so.”

After being my best friend for six months, Armin knew almost as well as Mikasa how to tell when I was lying. “Are you sure?”he asked, his inquisitive eyes fixated on my face.

“Yeah. It’s fine.” Armin might have been skilled enough to know when I was lying, but he still hadn’t reached a high enough tier to be as pushy as Mikasa.

“Okay,” he said passively. “Just making sure.”

“Hey, is anyone in the mood for a movie?” Hanji asked. “I brought a ton. Mind bringing out the desserts, Levi?”

My attention was back with the group. As everyone clustered around Hanji to look at the selection she had brought, Levi stood up from the couch with a heavy sigh, gathered as many takeout containers as he could carry and started towards the kitchen. I scurried to the coffee table, picked up the rest of the scattered plates and went after him.

When I walked in, he was standing at one of the counters, loading his arms with trays and baking tins. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Thanks,” he said.

I smiled before I could stop myself. “It’s nothing, really.”

“I just wasn’t expecting anyone to help.”

“We’re using your place as a venue. I think you deserve a hand.”

“Hanji’s doing most of the entertaining as it is. And she paid for most of the food,” he replied gruffly. “You can put the leftovers in the fridge. I’ll probably eat them later,” he quickly added as I moved to put the takeout containers on the counter.

I did as I was told and turned back to Levi. “Anything else I can do?”

“Not much. If you could bring the rest of these out, that would be great.”

“Hey, Levi, um...”

Halfway through the doorway, he turned back to me. “What is it, brat?”

“I...”

_How am I supposed to go about this?_

“Nothing. I-it can wait until later.”

Levi didn’t fight me on it like I had expected him to. He simply exhaled, turned in the doorway and went back to the living room. I figured that he was too tired to get into another argument like the one we’d had the last time we were alone together.

And we had been alone together once. The thought made my pulse flutter in my veins.

If I had known that when I came out, the TV in the corner of Levi’s living room would be playing the opening credits of _Elf_ , I might as well have stayed in the kitchen and kept the desserts to myself. I had seen the movie so many times, the sight of Will Ferrell in that stupid costume made me want to gouge my eyes out. But the rest of the group was there, all clustered together in their own little cuddle puddles on the couch and the floor around it. Jean and Marco were leaned back on the couch together, and Connie and Sasha sat mushed together next to the coffee table and within an arm’s length of the snacks. Both Annie and Armin had converged on Reiner on the couch, each with one arm stretched over one of his broad shoulders, and I could have sworn I saw their fingers twined together behind his head. Hanji was on the floor, trying to lean back against Levi’s legs, and Levi was trying his hardest to keep to himself, curled up in his own corner next to the arm of the couch.

His actions definitely weren’t a cue, but I took them as one anyway. After I had deposited a tray of sugar and gingerbread cookies on the coffee table, I fit myself into the small remaining space on the cushions of Levi’s couch to act as a buffer between the two admins. Hanji saw my intentions and scooted over to let me in. The tiny space left me feeling squished, with both Armin’s and Levi’s hips pressing up against the sides of mine. As soon as I had sat down, Hanji leaned back again and rested her head against my knee. I took it as a sign that I wouldn’t be leaving that spot anytime soon.

Levi glanced sideways at me and whispered, “I don’t think my couch is supposed to take this much weight.”

I snickered. “It’s only five people. It’ll be fine.”

“Then you can pay for my new couch when one more idiot tries to climb on and it breaks. How does that sound?”

“It sounds like you’re a fucking cynic.”

“Look who’s talking, brat.”

Hanji twisted around and pulled herself up to her knees. “Excuse me, am I hearing an argument on Christmas?”

“Technically, it’s not Christmas until tomorrow,” Levi pointed out.

“Christmas day, Christmas eve, doesn’t matter,” she contested. “Quit being a Grinch.”

Levi didn’t bother with responding. Instead he rolled his eyes and turned his head to stare through the sliding glass door at the darkening snowscape outside. I could feel him tensing up next to me, though I couldn’t figure out why. I ran his _Nothing_ through my head again. Maybe he had some kind of deep-seated hatred for Christmas or something that I wasn’t aware of.

I found my friends to be much more entertaining than _Elf_. Sasha was grabbing desserts by the handful through most of the movie, and Connie aided her in her desperate struggle to keep any crumbs from hitting Levi’s pristine carpet. Marco slowly keeled over onto Jean over the course of the movie until he was on the floor with his head in his friend’s lap. Reiner got up after a while, and without the Alpha Blonde to separate them, Armin and Annie gravitated towards one another and wound up stuck together between the couch arm and their big brother when he came back. I thought I heard faint snatches of whispered conversation passing back and forth between them. That started me wondering whether or not Annie could actually whisper, and I came to the conclusion that she could probably force air out of her lungs hard enough to make some kind of sound before I finally looked at Levi again.

The tension I felt from him slowly dissipated as Elf’s plot developed just as I remembered it would. I thought he was starting to recover from whatever had been bothering him before, but his face told me that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

_Is he okay?_ I asked inside my own head.

He sat deathly still, staring numbly at the flickering screen. His face was blank, not blank in the bored, uncaring way that it usually was, but completely blank, as if he were feeling not apathy or disillusion, but nothing. A complete and literal nothing.

_He can’t possibly be okay._

I nudged him with my shoulder. He blinked in surprise and looked over at me. I asked. I couldn’t help it.

“Hey. Are you okay?”

He stared at me, and his eyebrows twitched momentarily together, like he was concerned and maybe a little worried that I would ask him a question like that. But his face straightened out again not even a second later. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he replied. “Why are you asking?”

“No reason. You just seemed a little... a little...” I stammered, looking for the right way to put what I was feeling into words.

He smirked and breathed out in a shaky way that might have been his version of a laugh. “Just shut up and watch the movie, brat.”

“Okay,” I sighed listlessly. I obeyed him, but he couldn’t stop me from leaning my head on his shoulder. I figured that he would try to pull away from me the way he had with Hanji anyhow.

But, strangely enough, he didn’t.

 

* * *

 

After _Elf_ ended, the sky had gone dark and people were starting to get tired. The time reading on Levi’s DVD player said it was just gone ten. It wasn’t late at all by any of our standards, but a lot had happened in the past few days. Most of the group had a lot ahead of them as well. The night had been fun, but it had to end eventually.

Reiner was the first to go. It didn’t surprise me much, since the past week had ripped him to shreds. Annie got up from the couch not long after he did, since he had driven her there and was her ride home. She stopped to pull Armin into a tight Christmas hug with her strong little arms. She whispered something into her ear, he whispered back, and she nodded. Then he made his way over to me while she went to the hallway to get her things.

“Eren, is it okay if Reiner takes me home?” he asked shyly.

“Why?” I replied.

There was a lot that I wanted to say to him right then. Most of it had to do with the fact that he was supposed to be my ride home and that this party would be super fucking awkward without him. Also my brain was screaming that if he left now, there would be one less person who could prevent me from hurling myself at Levi. But one of those subjects had the unpleasant consequence of me stomping on Armin’s happiness, and other risked revealing my illicit feelings about my ex-nurse. I had every intention of keeping my distance from both those situations. So “Why?” was all that would come out.

“Annie said that Reiner wanted to talk a few things over with me.”

“Couldn’t he text it to you or call later or something?”

“I don’t know. It’s probably urgent. And she said he wants to talk to me face-to-face while he has the chance. He doesn’t want to do it while the rest of the group is around, though.”

I stared at the floor and rubbed nervously at the back of my neck. “I... Are you sure it’ll be okay with your grandpa? He was already planning on picking you up.” _And me_.

“I can call him. It’ll be fine. You can get a ride from someone else, right?”

There was the Armin concern I had been waiting to hear. “I don’t know. Probably. Maybe.”

“Julia can probably give you a lift. I think your place is on the way to Trost, right?”

I had no idea, but I agreed anyway. “I think so. Do you think she would be okay with that?” _And do you think that I would be okay with sitting in a car with Jean and no Mikasa to keep him distracted?_

“Yeah, definitely. She’s a sweetheart, there’s no way she wouldn’t be,” Armin replied confidently.

“Alright,” I finally said. “Just let me know when you get home.” _So you can let me know if your grandpa can still be bothered to come and get me._

“Thank you so much, Eren!” Armin pulled me close and wrapped me in a tight hug. “I’ll come visit you over the break, okay?”

“Okay.”

He pulled back, his sky blue eyes wide and sparkling over a bright, elfish smile. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

And, just like that, my ride home was gone for the night.

I probably could have asked someone else to take me home. But, since I was still a socially awkward idiot at my core, I didn’t. Sasha and Connie left together not long after the blondes did, then Julia Bodt came to pick up Jean and Marco. I could have followed through with Armin’s suggestion and gone with them, but the thought of dealing with Jean in such close proximity with only a passive Marco to separate him from me made my overloaded stomach turn. Hanji stuck around for a while longer, but a text from her parents demanding she come back home and help them tidy up the mess their own party had left diverted her efforts. She walked out the door and left Levi with the promise that she would come back the next day to help him finish cleaning up.

And after that...

“Anyone coming to take you home, brat?”

I glanced up from my blank staring at the almost-empty dessert trays on the coffee table to refocus my eyes on Levi’s face. I was sitting shamefully on his couch, my hand resting on the pocket of my jeans where I had stowed my phone. I had been waiting for it to vibrate for ages, but nothing of the sort had happened yet.

“Well, I...” I stammered, trying to explain my predicament. “I was supposed to have Armin’s grandpa bring me home-”

“You missed that bus a while ago, Eren.”

“I-I know, but he was supposed to text me when he got home so I could ask him to send his grandpa over to pick me up.”

“And he hasn’t said anything yet?”

“I don’t think so. My phone hasn’t gone off all night.”

“Have you checked?”

“No,” I muttered embarrassedly as I tugged my phone out of my pocket. I held it flat in front of me and clicked the lock button. The screen stayed dark. “What the...”

“Something wrong?”

“No, it’s just...” I hit the button again. Nothing changed. I held it down, wondering if I might have somehow turned it off by accident. Still nothing. “Shit. I think my battery’s dead.”

“What?” Anger flashed in Levi’s eyes and he raked his fingers into his hair. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”

“No,” I said disappointedly. “I could have sworn that I charged it before I came here.”

“What kind of phone is it?” Levi asked suddenly, cutting me short. “I might have a charger that matches up with it.”

“It’s a Galaxy. I’ve had it for a few years.”

“What? No way.” Before I knew it, Levi had disappeared into the kitchen again. He came back holding a black charger cord in one hand and his cell phone in the other. He held his phone next to mine, comparing the two of them side by side. They were exactly the same model. The only differences were the cases and the chipped corner of my screen where I had dropped it one too many times. It was strange that I had never noticed before.

“Lucky coincidence?” I said, looking hopefully up at him.

“Luck is bullshit,” he replied. “But I think that the cosmos has done some pretty good work here.” He went to the outlet by the takeout window to the kitchen and plugged my phone in. “Think you can call him while it’s charging?”

“I, um...” I said unsteadily. “I actually can’t use it until it’s been charging for a while.”

Levi stared deadenedly at me. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No!” I shot back. “I-I’m sorry, but it’s old, and I guess the battery’s fucked up or something.”

“We’re going to have to wait it out, then.” He crossed over to the couch and collapsed next to me.

“So... now what?” I wasn’t even sure why I was asking.

“Hell if I know.”

“We could make out or something. Just to pass the time.”

Levi sat up and shot me a look that directly stated _I am going to fucking slap you_. I bit my lip to shut myself up and went back to staring at the wall. _Nailed it, Eren. Great job._

Minutes passed. Ten-thirty was long gone, and still neither of us had moved. I didn’t know if I could take any more of the silence and waiting. I couldn’t look at Levi. I felt like if I did, something regrettable would happen. It was like every dream scenario I’d ever had with Levi, only about a thousand times worse because... well, because it was real.

I felt the cushions next to me shift a little. “Oi, Eren.”

“Hm?” The sudden sound of Levi’s voice had startled me.

“How fast can you walk?”

I worked up the courage to turn and look at him. “I’m not all that great at doing anything physical. Why are you asking?”

“Just thinking... you know, since we’re here and we don’t really have much to do, I thought... there’s this place around here that I used to like to go at this time of year.”

I glanced at the clock. “You think it’ll still be open at this hour?”

“It’s not really a place that closes down,” he replied. “Besides, it’s Christmas Eve. The night is always young during the holidays.”

I smiled a little, a blush rising into my cheeks. I liked the way he thought. “So... do you want to go there, or...”

“Can I make a deal with you, Eren?” Levi said, cutting me short.

“I’m listening.”

“This place, I... I haven’t been back there in a while. I could probably walk there from here, but it’s pitch black and snowing outside, and you’ve got your own problems, so that sounds fucking unpleasant for the both of us. And as far as I can tell, you don’t have a ride home. I’m willing to drive you back if you come with me. Because, honestly, going there by myself kind of sucks.”

This situation could have gone a number of ways. I had no idea what kind of place Levi was talking about. It could have been a bar, or a strip club, or even an abandoned nuclear plant for all I knew. He had never specified why he hated being alone there. But at the same time, I didn’t have many options left for ways to get home. There was only one logical next step to take.

“What kind of place is it?” I asked.

“Just a little strip mall in downtown Shiganshina,” Levi answered. “It’s nothing special, really. They just decorate a lot.”

“Hm.” I took a second to consider. Or I pretended that I did. As far as I was concerned, my decision was already made.

“Deal.”

 

* * *

 

I tried to get more information out of Levi on the car ride to the mall that was apparently so special. He wouldn’t say very much, only a few infuriatingly vague statements that could have applied to at least ten separate things. As far as he would tell me, he had gone to the strip mall all the time when he was younger. He had a lot of fond memories there. Almost all of the stores stayed open until midnight on Christmas Eve, and sometimes he liked to come back to walk around, look at the decorations and remember. Exactly what he was remembering, though, he refused to tell me.

It was eighteen minutes to eleven when we pulled into a parking space next to the sidewalk. In spite of the hour, I could see lights glimmering against the falling snow, turning it into white-gold glitter falling from the clouds. There was still a decent number of cars sitting at the sides of the street besides ours. I stepped out, and Levi did the same. There was something fast about his movements, as if he had more energy behind them than usual. He was hiding it pretty well, but I was sure that he was excited.

“It’s been ages since I last came here,” he told me as we strolled in between two buildings.

“And how long does _ages_ mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Months,” he replied. “A year, maybe. Probably more.”

“Because you hate coming here alone?”

“Mostly.”

We stepped out of the alleyway, and I found myself blinking in a flood of soft golden light. My eyes adjusted, and suddenly I was standing in the middle of what was probably the most beautiful street I had ever seen in my life. All around us were old-looking buildings, kept renovated and fused together for the most part, except for a few small side streets like the one we had just come in through. Every single one of them was strung with garland and lights of all colors and designs. Store windows were lined with fake snow, strings of lights and little toys, and most of them had their doors open and their lights on. Through the snow that had been worn away by footsteps, I saw that the street was paved over with bricks to become a walkway, rather than a place for cars to drive. Deciduous trees were planted every fifty feet or so. All of them had lost their leaves, and all the leaves had been replaced by white fairy lights. The falling snow shimmered like dying stars when the drifting flakes reflected the glow.

Standing in the middle of the street, directly in front of the place we had entered through, was a dark green sign painted with gold letters. _Rhea Square Mall._

This was the place. I could feel it.

Levi took the lead, and we started walking. The place was surprisingly lively for the time of night. All around us, people were milling around. A few bars we passed on the way assured me that most of them were probably drunk. I mentioned it to Levi, he laughed a little, and a moment later he pointed out a bakery where we decided to get cinnamon rolls, even though I had nearly put myself into a food coma with everything that Hanji had brought to the party. We ate them while we wandered aimlessly through the mall. Levi grumbled something about getting his fingers all sticky, and I was enjoying myself too much to care.

I wasn’t sure how long we spent wandering. I hadn’t been paying attention to the time, or anything else, really. The only thing I was aware of was the night, the snap of the cold, gentle breeze on my face letting me know I was still alive, Levi at my side, exchanging his words with mine. It took longer than it normally did for me to realize that I was getting tired. By the time I did, my legs felt almost ready to collapse.

“Levi...” I said, reaching out to tap him on the shoulder.

He turned around before I had even touched him, as if he had intuitively known I what I needed. “What is it, Eren?”

“I... I need to sit down, my legs...”

“Already on it.” He looked briskly back and forth, as if he were searching for something. All the while he was muttering to himself. “Come on, I know they’re around here somewhere... Aha.” He stopped and turned back to me. “This way.”

I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but I followed him anyway. He led me to a set of two benches on the side of the street. Between them stood what looked like a tall metal lamp that emitted a hot scarlet glow from a steel grate just below the shade. I could feel warmth spilling off of it in waves as I drew closer.

“Thanks,” I said breathlessly. I bent over to brush some of the freshly fallen snow from the wooden slats and collapsed onto the seat.

“I thought I remembered this place having heat lamps during the winter,” Levi said as he settled down next to me. “It would kind of suck if I let my cancer brat get hypothermia. Hanji might have to kick me out of the YCSG for that one.”

I laughed, and my breath condensed into a cloud of mist in the frigid air. “That would suck, wouldn’t it?”

He nodded. He was gazing at the lights, and I saw them reflected in his eyes. “Cancer sucks even worse when you don’t have people to talk to about it.” He glanced over at me and shuddered a little. “Too soon?”

I shook my head. “It’ll always be too soon.”

We sat in silence for a while before I could finally work up the courage to keep talking. “Hey, Levi... about what I asked you before...”

“Right. You said later, didn’t you?”

“Y-yeah, I did. And... I guess later means now,” I replied. “Listen, I just wanted to know... Do you actually have nothing to do over Christmas vacation?”

Levi looked at me, his face unreadable, then dropped his gaze to the pavement and stayed quiet for what felt like forever. With every passing second, fear clouded over my brain. _I’ve pushed him too far. God fucking dammit, I’ve pushed him too far. He hates me now. He’s never going to speak to me again._

“Eren, I...” he started suddenly, almost making my heart stop in the process. “I don't have _nothing_ to do, per se. Just nothing interesting.”

“But are you really just going to keep working? The whole week?”

“I don’t have very much else to do, brat. Besides, medical emergencies never take a vacation.”

“But don’t you have, like... family stuff or plans with friends or...”

I had to stop myself there. Levi was starting to turn towards me, and I was scared that he would have that same look on his face as before, the one that made him look like he wanted to smack me so hard that I wouldn’t wake up until New Year’s.

“I just don’t have a lot of people who want to see me,” he said flatly. “That’s all.”

I don’t know if it was sleepy late-night delirium setting in, or the sugar high from everything I had eaten that night. Maybe I was starting to feel too safe. Whatever the reason, I had a massive lapse in judgement and lost control of my mouth and lungs for a brief second.

“Why not?”

The question was out before I was even aware that I wanted to ask it. As soon as it was, I was scared to death that I couldn’t take it back.

I didn’t know what I was saying. I didn’t know what I was walking into.

_Please don’t be mad, Levi. I’m sorry. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing._

Levi sighed and turned his piercing blue-grey gaze on me. “Are you sure you want to hear this story, brat?”

“Y-yes,” I said without thinking. Whatever he had to say, he could say it and I would have to listen. There was no turning back now.

Levi sighed again and turned away from me to stare at the snow-covered ground. “Look, Eren. If you really want to know the truth... I don’t have a family.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t make any words come out.

“They’re dead. Both my parents. Things with the rest of my relatives have been pretty fragmented for as long as I can remember, so... yeah. No family.”

Well, that was probably the biggest bomb ever dropped since Hiroshima.

I tried to say something again, but my throat felt dry and useless. A single, short sentence was all I was able to get out of my system. “What happened?”

Levi looked back at me and cocked his head, his face still an unreadable mix of emotions. “You’re sure you want to hear about all of this right now? We’re going to be out here all night.”

I nodded. I didn’t trust myself with the use of words anymore.

Levi looked back at the trees ahead of him and sighed one last time. “Fine. I might as well,” he murmured. “Since you’re so fucking determined.”

It took another few minutes of silence for him to actually get started. “Things were okay for me growing up, I guess. There isn’t much I can tell you right now that would matter. I had both my parents back then, and our life was a little isolated, what with the whole family issue, but I’d say we were happy. I grew up in this area. And out of all the things I remember, I think my favorite thing was coming here with my mom and dad every Christmas. We would go here so many times all throughout the season, and then my mom would sometimes come back without my dad to get presents for him and all of their friends, and if I promised not to tell anyone about what she got for them, she would get a treat for me, usually from a bakery or candy store or something...”

He trailed off for a second before he said, “That was how it was before I turned eight, anyway.”

“And then what happened?” I asked, like the stupid, too-curious child I must have seemed like to him.

“My mom started having these migraines,” he continued. “She’d sort of always had them, but... but they were never that bad. They usually only lasted a few minutes, maybe an hour at the most. Then, that year, they just reached a point where they got worse and worse. It was so bad that she would have to stay home from work if she felt one coming on in the morning. They would sometimes be so painful that she started crying, and then once her nose started bleeding in the middle of one... And then she started saying that she was losing feeling in her hands and feet. I saw her burn herself on the stove once, and she said that she didn’t feel a thing. She didn’t even know her hand was on the burner. That was when my dad finally decided she needed to see a doctor. We took her to the hospital, and...” His voice wavered and he stopped. I saw him biting his lip, his chest shuddering and the small cloud of fog drifting from his lips as he tried to take a breath and steady himself.

“Brain cancer,” he finally said. “They told us it was brain cancer. No colony cells, no spreading, nothing. The disease was in her brain, that was the only place it had ever been, and that was the only place it would ever be. According to the scans, the tumors had rooted themselves too deep for surgery to be an option. Not that we could have afforded it anyway. Our insurance was shit, and they were only willing to cover two thirds of the cost. They were willing to pay for treatment, though. Or most of it. Even then, chemotherapy didn’t do anything. The cells just kept growing, and she was suffering more and more. And eventually she just asked them to stop. She was so... tired of trying... when she knew there was nothing left that anyone could do. She knew that she was already too far gone to be saved.”

Levi turned towards me. His eyes were hollow and glassy. “She lived for ninety-six days. They diagnosed her, and ninety-six days later, she died. I watched her go, and... it hurt. More than anything else I’ve ever felt in my life.”

I stared at Levi, my throat tight and my lips numb. I had no way to respond. I wanted to relate somehow. My mom had died from cancer, too. I had watched it destroy her, too. But it hadn’t happened anywhere near that fast. It wasn’t that violent. And, most importantly, I had been older than he had when everything had happened. It might not have meant much in any other context, but at ten years old, death is a much clearer concept than it is at eight.

“I guess we’re not so different, then, are we?” he said, offering me a weak, sad half-smile.

“I guess not,” I managed to choke out.

He was right, but at the same time he couldn’t have been more wrong. The way his mother had died, and the way he had to watch it happen... all of it was so much worse. He’d been hurt in a far more twisted way than I had been, probably had memories I couldn’t even imagine-

“Wait, didn’t you say...”

“Oh, right. I’m not finished, am I?” He went back to staring at the lit-up trees. I was about to tell him that I didn’t need to know everything, that he didn’t have to finish, but he started talking again before I could let him know that it wasn’t necessary. “About my dad... things kind of fell apart after my mom died.”

_Wow, doesn’t this sound familiar?_

“He was an emotional wreck. He did his best to keep me from seeing it, but nothing he did worked. It was just too much for him, and he was having such a hard time trying to cope. Then, about a year after she died, he started drinking...”

_No, Eren, this does not sound familiar at all._

“I didn’t even notice at first. He was just coming home later from work than usual. I never realized that anything was wrong until I was eleven or twelve. Then I figured out that he always came home late because was going out to bars after work almost every night. I started finding whiskey and beer in the fridge, and he was drunk almost all the time when he was at home. I guess it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He wasn’t an angry drunk, just a really depressed and tired one. He would come home, pass out on the couch or in his bed, then drag himself out to work the next day and start it all over again. He kept working, so we didn’t lose the house or fall into debt or anything... or at least, not that I was aware of. He was barely talking to me at that point. I really didn’t know anything about what was going on in his life. It went on for years, and I just put up with it. Living like a shadow in his life, just this thing in the background next to the alcohol and the memories of his dead wife...” Levi’s hands had tensed up in his lap. Another puff of mist rose up in front of his face. I knew that dredging all of this stuff up was hurting him, but he didn’t stop.

“Then, one night, he never came home. I was seventeen. I was a senior in high school, and I was going to graduate in about six months or so. I had picked out the college I wanted to go to, I had sent my applications in, I had plenty of scholarships lined up to take the edge off the cost, and I was so ready to move on and forget that shitty life that I had been stuck living up to that point...” He stopped to breathe. My hand inched towards his on the bench.

“I got a call from the hospital at some ridiculous time in the morning. I’m not even sure when it was anymore. All I can remember is that they said my dad was in the emergency room, that he had collapsed in a parking lot and hadn’t gotten back up. He’d been drinking again. His BAC level was far above what any normal person should be able to handle. I didn’t have a car, since we only had one, and he had driven it to work, so I ran to the hospital in the dark at god-knows-how-early in the morning. I got there just as the sun was rising and... and they told me he was dead. He had alcohol poisoning. The fucker drank himself to death before I had even moved out of the house.”

“L-Levi...” My voice cracked as I said his name. I tried to respond somehow, but there still wasn’t anything worthwhile that I could say.

He turned his gaze on me again. The emptiness in his eyes had melted away into something else. It was soft, sad, something so tortured that I couldn’t describe it. I couldn’t put it into words, but I felt it. I was in pain too, as if his remembering his own suffering was somehow unearthing the same feelings in me.

“Is everything okay?” he asked softly. My eyes stung.

_Why are you asking_ me _that?_

“I-I’m okay, Levi, I just...” I murmured, my voice wavering. “I didn’t know. I-I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you...”

“It’s okay. I should have known that if we were going to be friends, it would have to come out sooner or later.”

“But... it’s Christmas, and that’s just so... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“It’s not a problem,” he said, even though it definitely was. “I can’t help thinking about it around this time of year as it is.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I told you before, I have nothing to do during the holiday season. I usually just work, since my classes are on break and I need the money anyway. Sometimes my colleagues get together for drinks or something, but there’s nothing significant.”

Silence stretched between us for a moment, then I finally remembered how to use words. Even though it definitely wasn’t the best thing I could have done, I felt compelled to ask another question. “So, after... after your dad died... what did you do?”

“Well, I sold the house, first of all,” he said. The faint shiver that had risen in his voice had died down. It had been replaced by bitterness, and he was spitting his words out as if they tasted poisonous to him. “There was no way I could afford to live there on my own. I was just a kid. I was still in high school, I had no job, so I sold whatever I could and scouted out the cheapest apartment that I could find. I had talked to the family attorney once, a few weeks before he wasn’t our attorney anymore, and he said that my dad had willed pretty much all of his savings to me. I stashed them away to pay for college, but there was so much I still had to worry about. I had to pay rent, and buy food, and everything he had left me just barely covered my tuition. I figured that a minimum-wage job wouldn’t cut it, so I had to find... other ways... to make money.”

I didn’t like the implications behind those words. “What do you mean, other ways?”

“I mean I had to do a lot of shady shit to stay alive,” Levi snipped, and I didn’t ask for any more detail than that. “I was involved with a lot of things I don’t like remembering. I did a lot of dangerous things, I couldn’t keep up with any relationships because of all the secrecy... it was a lot of bullshit, really. Anyway, one night I got stuck in the middle of a fight while I was working in downtown Trost, and things got a bit violent. Long story short, I wound up getting shot-”

“You’ve been _shot_?!”

“Yes, brat, I’ve been shot before. Don’t try it, because it’s fucking painful. Anyway, I got out of there and called 911, then the EMTs took me to the ER. Cops were waiting for me when I got there, and they were willing to give me time to heal before I was taken in for questioning. Erwin happened to be working in the ER that night, he stopped in to talk with me, and...” Levi shrugged. “I guess he decided we were friends after that.”

“You know Dr. Erwin because he treated you for a gunshot?”

“He didn’t treat me, dumbass. Physical trauma isn’t his specialty. He was just there. Anyway, no one else involved in the incident had been taken in, so I was able to convince the cops that I had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time-”

“Were you?”

“ _Yes_ , brat, I was. Why are you so fucking chatty all of a sudden?”

That shut me up well enough, and Levi continued. “They released me after a day, and not long after, Erwin got back into contact with me. He asked me to meet him at this restaurant in Trost and said he would pay for everything. At that point, I was willing to take free food wherever I could get it. I didn’t know what he was hoping to get out of it, if he just wanted to talk to me or if he wanted something else from me... I figured that he seemed nice enough when we met, and anyone will tell you that the man is pretty damn attractive, so I agreed.”

A little lighter-flame of hope flicked on in the back of my mind when I heard those last words slip out of his mouth. I did my best to block it out.

“We started talking while we were there, and... I don’t know if he charmed it out of me, or I started feeling too safe, or what kind of mental lapse I was having at the time, but... I told him the truth. All of it. And I wasn’t proud of it. He had to fucking drag it out of me. But he wouldn’t stop until I had confessed every last bit. And you know what?” He paused for effect and locked his gaze with mine. “He didn’t report me.”

“What?” The outcome didn’t make any sense to me.

“He didn’t turn me in,” Levi repeated. “He even told me _to my face_ that not a single word that had come out of me in that conversation would be heard by another soul. Once I had finished pouring my heart out to him, he made me an offer.”

“Which was?”

“Well, by then I was only a few weeks away from graduating high school. He told me that if I straightened my life out, he would help support me, since he had the money for it. Then, once I finished school, I could work for him at Trost. I said yes, and then after graduation I started taking nursing classes at Rose Community. I had originally planned on going straight into a pre-med program, but things had gotten a little complicated. Anyway, I got an associate’s degree in two years with qualifications that left me just short of a bachelor’s. Trost hired me as an LPN, I earned enough to move into this place, I enrolled at Sina instead of my dream school, and... here we are now.”

It took a while for all of the details to sink in. Everything made sense all of a sudden. Levi’s cynicism, the classes he took, even his weird affinity with uncertainty principles were falling into place. We sat side by side on the bench, and I gazed into his eyes in a way that I felt like I never had before. I had reached a new tier of understanding him. Everything felt different all of a sudden. There he was, sitting there and letting me stare at him, not saying a word because he already knew why I was doing it. He always knew.

That was one of the things that made him Levi.

I didn’t know what more there was to say, so I asked another question. “Have you always wanted to be an oncologist?”

“Not always,” he answered. “At least I don’t think so. Definitely after my mom died, though. After seeing all that... I wanted to do whatever I could to keep other people from going through the same thing. I didn’t want to see more people die the way she did. You get what I’m saying, don’t you?”

I did. I nodded. There were barely any people left in the mall by then, other than the ones who were spilling out of the bars either to come in or leave. The lights in one of the stores around us went out. Another went dark not much later, then another.

“All the stores are closing for the night,” Levi said. “We should probably get going.”

“Okay,” I replied. Levi helped me up from the bench, and we started back the way we came. The snow was starting to fall more heavily, but the cloud layer above was starting to thin out. That was the only reason that I noticed the stars shining through. Even with the stores closing one by one, the street was still just as beautiful as it had been when we first walked in.

I cast a sideways glance at Levi. He was staring straight ahead, looking complicated as always. Something about him was different, though. My eyes moved down from his face to where his hand was resting limply beside his leg. Then, without thinking, I reached out and grabbed it.

“Wha...” Levi’s head whipped in my direction. His eyes were frozen wide in surprise. “What are you doing?” he asked.

I looked down at our hands. My fingers had twined around his. Warmth was radiating from his palm into mine, a gentle defense against the bitter cold.

“I don’t know,” I said absently. And it was the truth. I really didn’t. “It just felt right.”

Levi didn’t have anything to say to that. He let a soft, breathy laugh slip from his lips in a puff of mist and looked straight ahead again. He squeezed his fingers around mine, just once. I squeezed back in response. My heart pulsed right along with them.

“It’s my birthday tomorrow,” he randomly mentioned as we walked.

I glanced over at him. “It is?” He nodded, and I added, “Your birthday’s on Christmas day? That sucks.”

“It’s not that bad,” he said, lowering his gaze to the snow that crunched under our feet. “I used to get a present for both at the same time when I was little. I always loved it. Twice as many presents and no waiting.”

“And now you can get hammered to celebrate making it this far,” I finished with a laugh. Levi looked over at me. “Because you’re turning twenty-one. That means you can legally drink, right?”

“Legalities sure as hell didn’t stop you at Jean’s party,” Levi said bitterly.

My face was suddenly burning in spite of the cold. “Th-that was one time!”

“One time too many, brat. Besides, drinking isn’t really my thing.”

I didn’t feel a need to ask why anymore. I just held onto his hand and fell silent.

Almost all of the stores had closed by the time we got back to the car. I had no clue what time it was, and I didn’t care. I climbed into the passenger seat, then Levi into the driver’s side and we started towards my house. Neither of us said very much on the way there. I was half-asleep for most of the ride as it was. Every few minutes I thought about inching my hand over to his side of the car and trying to get his attention again, but it took me only a few seconds to realize exactly how stupid that would have been.

_Stupid._

_Just like last time._

_And the time before that._

It didn’t end until Levi’s car had stopped in my driveway.

He turned to me and nudged my shoulder. “Hey. Wake up, brat. You’re home.”

“Nn? Oh,” I mumbled. I sat up and pushed my hair out of my face before undoing my seatbelt. I hadn’t been sleeping, but I _had_ been slumped sideways in the passenger seat with my head leaned against the window and my eyes half-closed, about as close to sleep as a person can get without losing their stream of consciousness.

“I should probably thank you for coming out with me tonight,” he said. “Staying out late and going back there, I... I really can’t tell you how much all of that meant to me.”

“Well, you drove me home, so I guess we can call it even.”

The corner of Levi’s mouth twitched into a slight smile, and I got out of his car. I stopped in my tracks just before slamming the door shut. “Can you text me when you get home?”

Levi laughed. “Come on, brat. Who are you, my mom?”

“That was too soon, Levi,” I said apathetically. “Even for you.”

“Whatever. It’s not like it really matters anymore.” He shook his head and smiled at me again. “I’ll text you, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“You will?”

“Yeah. Why not?” he replied. “It’s nice to know that someone cares about you.”

My heart skipped a beat, and for a second I thought my blood had started to flow backwards. I had to replay his words twice in my head to be sure that he’d actually said them.

_Yes, Eren. Levi knows you care about him. Now quit being an idiot and say goodbye._

My fingers tightened on the edge of the car door. “I’ll see you soon, okay?” I said.

“Okay,” he replied. “See you.”

“See you.”

With those words, I finally worked up the restraint to shut the door between us and start walking toward my house.

Dad still wasn’t home yet, but Mikasa was. She had been for a while. I found her upstairs in her room, still awake and very fascinated by something she was reading on her laptop.

“Welcome home, Eren,” she said before I could sneak up on her. “You’re late. How did everything go?”

“It was fine,” I said. “Armin went home with Annie and Reiner, though, so I had to have someone else drive me.”

Mikasa looked up from her laptop and fixed her eyes on me. “Who drove you?”

My face flared up with a searing blush as I admitted, “Levi.”

“Why did he bring you home late?” she went on, her face taking on a lethal expression.

“Because Hanji had to help clean up,” I blurted out, making up a story as quickly as I could. It wasn’t too far from the truth. “He wasn’t just going to leave her there by herself.”

“Oh.” Mikasa seemed surprised. “Okay. Well, I should probably be getting to sleep soon.” She pushed her laptop away and stood up to pull me into a hug. “Goodnight, Eren.”

“Goodnight.” My sister held me captive just long enough to give me a kiss on the cheek, then I walked out of her room and she shut the door behind me.

I sent my dad a quick text to assure him that I had gotten home safe and left my phone in my room while I brushed my teeth. There was a new message waiting for me when I came back. I unlocked the screen to see who it was from.

**1 New Message from: Levi**

**I’m home, in case you still wanted to know.**

A smile broke out on my face, and I opened up my inbox to send a reply message.

**Me: I did. Thanks. Merry Christmas :)**

I locked my phone, stripped my clothes off and fell into bed in my boxers, too exhausted to bother with actual pajamas, then shut the light off before crawling under the covers. A warm, fuzzy feeling was building up in my chest, like hot coals right before they burst into flame. I was still holding my phone in my hands, letting it rest on my chest like a love letter I had just finished reading. Levi had remembered. He had responded.

In the silence, my phone went off again as another text came in.

**Levi: Merry Christmas, brat**

That was it. Those few words were all that I had needed to hear.

That text was the last thing I saw before I fell asleep. I locked my phone and rested it on the side of my mattress, too exhausted to get out from under the covers and put it anywhere else. I rolled over, nestled my head in the pillows, and listened to my pulse racing in my ears.

As I drifted off, I thought about everything he had told me that night. I couldn’t believe how much Levi had been hiding. It must have been killing him, keeping all of it quiet.

Then it occurred to me that I had been doing the exact same thing.

Not much later, fell asleep.

And at some point between those two, I fell in love with him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is. I finally said it. We have now officially reached that point.  
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as you enjoyed the past year of them. Or more. We'll see how it goes from this point onward.  
> Merry Christmas (almost).  
> See you next chapter.


	19. New Year, Same Issues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MERRY SHITSCRAM  
> I MEAN MERRY CHRISTMAS.  
> OR HAPPY HOLIDAYS. WHATEVER YOUR PREFERENCE IS.  
> So it's only been about three centuries since my last update. Now it's 12:39, I'm between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and I don't care enough about sleep to not post this new chapter that is probably going to take me at least an hour and a half to edit and post. But it's the season, and if you've been sticking with this story for this long, with all its emotional wreckage and my whiny, attention-whoring author notes, you deserve a gift for your efforts.  
> So here's a new chapter to ruin your life even more.  
> I'm finally caught up with the canon timeline in this story (for the most part) and hopefully it'll stay that way. I was supposed to be writing new material for further chapters all through this break between updates. Instead I attempted to start 3 new projects that have gone nowhere. So... I should probably be a little more dedicated to this. It's the longest fanfiction I have ever written as it stands, and it's going to be even longer.  
> How the hell am I going to finish all of this?  
> All of that aside, I hope you're all having a nice holiday. It's been kind of disappointing where I am, since it's sixty degrees in late December, it has been raining and foggy all week, and THAT IS NOT OKAY. ALL THAT RAIN AND SHIT COULD HAVE BEEN SNOW. CLIMATE CHANGE IS RUINING MY LIFE.  
> Ugh. Let's move on to self-promotions and forget I was ever angry at the weather.  
> Follow my tumblr at the-angstiest-author. If you want to make a fan post for this story, please tag your work with "fic: the monsters inside us" or "fic: tmiu." I'm tracking both, so whichever one you use, I'll probably find it somehow.  
> Merry Holidays, losers. Thanks for dealing with me for this long.  
> Story time.

 

 

I was in love with Levi Ackerman.

I never would have let myself believe it before that night. I had believed for so long that whatever was going on between Levi and me had been purely physical, possibly chemical, maybe even the result of my own emotional desperation. Even months after realizing the truth- that there was no way in hell my feelings for Levi were platonic- I still didn’t think that they would go any further than that.

Things changed that night in Rhea Square.

I was in love with Levi Ackerman.

Hearing the truth about where Levi had come from had made me die a little inside. But, at the same time, it had brought something to life. Something I hadn’t known was still inside me. It had been shut down a long time ago, but never destroyed. It was sleeping in me, dormant and waiting for the right chemical reaction to reanimate it.

And then  _ I was in fucking love with Levi fucking Ackerman. _

I thought that I only felt the way I did because I was alone when we reconnected. I was even more alone during the liver surgery summer, when we had first met and this whole disaster had started. Then when I saw him again, my memories came rushing back to me and I jumped at the chance to be close to him, to be close to anyone at all who knew me so well and understood me somehow. It didn’t matter that he only knew me because he had been paid to take care of me once upon a time. 

But if that was true, why didn’t I want Armin or Mikasa in the same way? 

It took until Christmas Eve to realize the truth. And by the time I did, I was on the verge of passing out and hadn’t been able to think too much about it. The next morning, however, was an entirely different story.

I woke up feeling too hot under my covers. I wriggled my arms free to push them away and found that a thin coating of sweat was clinging to my bare chest and face. After a few solid minutes of staring at the wall across from my bed and waiting for my vision to adjust, I felt conscious enough to move my covers away from my slowly toasting body. I tried to remember what the hell had happened the night before that had left me feeling the way I did. Then my hand brushed across my crotch. The feeling of physical contact on my hard and alarmingly sensitive dick made me wince. Then it all came rushing back to me.  _ Fuck, not again _ , I thought cringingly.

I had imagined myself lying in bed, and my window had been open, moonlight seeping in and beckoning me towards it. I had climbed out onto the roof, and the snow had been unbelievably soft, not cold or melty, more like cotton than tiny particles of ice. Levi had been standing in my front yard, throwing snowballs at my window. I had jumped off of the roof to land in front of him, we had ripped each others’ clothes off and he went down on me in the snow.

I pulled my hands away from my throbbing dick, spread myself out over the mattress like a starfish and sighed. This was way worse than I had initially thought.

I laid still and flexed my fingers and toes, trying to encourage my blood redistribute itself throughout my body. In the meantime, I tried to reason out how the hell everything had gone downhill so fast. It had been okay at first. Then August had happened, then this shit. Maybe if I had just stayed in denial the whole time, nothing would have happened. But I hadn’t been able to do it. Levi had drawn me in too far for me to back out.

I loved him too fucking much.

Suddenly someone was knocking on my door. “Eren?” a familiar voice called. “Are you awake yet?” I couldn’t place it at first, but when another knock echoed into my room, I remembered. It was Christmas morning. My dad was trying to wake me up.

_ FUCK,  _ it was  _ my DAD. _

I didn’t even have time to answer before the door swung open. I pulled my blankets up and rolled over as fast as I could to avoid at least some of the impending embarrassment. The last thing my dad needed to see on Christmas morning was me splayed out and stiff, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. I tried to look like I was still sleeping, but he’d seen me moving and didn’t fall for it. Either that or he had planned on barging in and traumatizing me awake in the first place.

My dad burst into the room and leaned over me, shaking me violently and shouting excitedly into my ear. “Good morning, Eren!” he exclaimed. “Wake up! It’s Christmas! Come on, wake up, lazybones! Merry Christmas!”

I cried out in panic and started flailing under the covers. “D-Dad!” I shouted. “Stop! I’m awake! I’m awake!”

He didn’t stop, but he did start laughing at the expression on my face when I rolled over and started swatting blindly at his hands. He took them back, busy laughing himself unconscious while I sat up with my knees to my chest. I piled the covers over any residual morning wood that I might have had.

“Alright, alright, sorry. I had to do it.” My dad grinned vibrantly at me and ruffled my already horrendous bedhead. He didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that I wasn’t wearing a shirt. 

“Merry Christmas, sport.”

I sighed as irritatedly as I could, but a smile crept onto my face at the same time. “Right, I know, Dad. Merry Christmas to you, too.”

“I want you to come downstairs. Mikasa made French toast for breakfast, and it’s fantastic. You have to come down and have some before it gets cold. I’ll give you time to put a shirt on,” he added with a smirk.

_ Ah, there it is _ . “Okay. I’ll be right down. I just need a minute.”

My dad nodded and started towards the door. He stopped halfway through, turned back to me and said, “Thanks for texting me last night, by the way.”

It took me a moment to remember what he was talking about. Then it came back to me. “It was nothing, really,” I replied. “Just doing what you asked. You’re welcome anyway, though.”

Dad smiled at me one more time before leaving the room and pushing my door not-quite-closed. I rolled out of bed in a second and dug through my dresser to find a shitty old sleep shirt and a pair of sweatpants to cover up with. I stepped out of my room and into a cloud of amazing smells wafting up the stairs. I rushed down into the kitchen to see a few plates set out on the table, already a little messy from my dad and Mikasa taking a few samples of my sister’s handiwork, and what was probably an entire loaf of bread soaked in egg, milk and pumpkin pie spice. 

“Oh my god, how much of this stuff did you make?” I asked. “You trying to feed an army or something?”

Mikasa turned toward me and scoffed, but crossed the kitchen to give me a hug anyway. “Merry Christmas to you, too, Eren.”

“This stuff smells amazing.” I strode to the table, looking for something to do but almost completely sure that I was too late to help out with breakfast. Which, strangely enough, I felt kind of guilty about. “Is there anything I can help out with?”

“There isn’t much left to do,” Mikasa answered. “But you can make some hot cocoa, if you want.”

I seized the opportunity. “Sure. Do you want to do the weird flavor thing with it? What should I add?”

We settled on nutmeg, then I assisted Mikasa as much as I could while she made the drinks the way only she knew how. All the while we were taking bits and pieces off of the toast, which was just as delicious as my dad had hyped it up to be. We eventually got around to actually sitting down for breakfast, but even that didn’t last very long, since my dad wanted us to get to the living room and see what he had left us under the Christmas tree. 

There were a few boxes of varying sizes waiting on the tree skirt for each of us, including a few bare cardboard packages sent by relatives who lived too far from us to contact us in any other way or at any other time of year. We unwrapped a few basic presents first. Mikasa got a few shirts, a pair of skinny jeans, a stupid cardigan that all of us knew she would never wear, and a small arsenal of gift cards from people who didn’t have any better ideas. The last box she opened didn’t have any names on it other than hers. It was small, compared to some of the others, but its contents must have been packed inside with a vacuum sealer. The package just about exploded when Mikasa ripped its seal of tape away.

“What... no way.” she murmured as she dug items out of the tissue paper. First there was a set of gunmetal earrings in various shapes, then a discordant assortment of pins that must have come from a thrift store, a copy of Life Is Strange and a pair of bright orange socks that had little fox faces printed on the toes. The last thing she took out was a pale grey shirt with words scrawled across the front in splattery black ink.  _ I’m not a psychopath, I’m a highly functioning sociopath. _

“It was a little awkward walking into Hot Topic to get some of this stuff,” my dad said nonchalantly, “but as far as shopping experiences go, it wasn’t too bad.”

“You even knew about the socks?” Mikasa blurted out in disbelief. My dad smiled and shrugged, and my sister shot across the room to give him a gratuitous hug, leaving me to wonder why even  _ I  _ hadn’t known that she had wanted a pair of fox socks for Christmas.

I had gone through most of my presents, and they weren’t much different from Mikasa’s. Clothes, gift cards, a few video games from people who were considerate enough to think of the titles I liked. At the bottom of it all was own box with no labels but my name. There was no question anymore as to who it had come from. I tore it open just to kill my anticipation quicker. Sitting inside was a dvd collection of John Hughes films, Bioshock Infinite, my own set of specialty socks (Rainbow ones.  _ Yeah, fuck you too, Dad. _ ), and at the bottom of it all, another Sherlock shirt, this one black with  _ I always hear ‘Punch me in the face’ when you’re speaking, but it’s usually subtext _ printed across the chest in stylized white typewriter text. It was carefully wrapped up in a navy-and-white plaid flannel. I reached in to unearth it from its tight packaging. The material was soft, probably from the same thrift store Mikasa’s pins had come from. The shirt stirred up a sickening longing in the pit of my chest. I knew another flannel that was a lot like this one.

“Again, I have that comment about Hot Topic...” my dad casually mentioned.

I lowered the shirt and flannel and looked up at him, a heartened smile on my face. “Dad...”

“Wow. You really like it that much?” He seemed surprised.

I dropped my gift on the floor and went to the couch to hug him, the same way Mikasa had. “But... rainbow socks? Really?” I added when I let go.

“Hey, I’m trying to be as supportive as I can.” I slapped him on the arm and went back to my hoard of presents while he laughed at me for the second time that day. I couldn’t keep from smiling, though. A Christmas spent being ridiculed was a hell of a lot better than some of the ones we’d had in the past.

“Don’t forget, you’ve got some things here, too!” Mikasa pointed out. And she was right. A few of our relatives had sent gifts for our dad in addition to the two of us. Most of them were ties. (Which was stupid, because my dad rarely even wore ties to work. Who the hell dresses up to work in a pathology lab?) But as he reached the end of the mailed-in boxes, Mikasa dug one more package out, one that had been hidden in the deepest recesses that could be reached behind the tree, and pushed it towards him. 

My dad looked stunned at first, then smiled. “Did you get this for me?”

Mikasa grinned like a little girl in a toy store. “Yes. Now open it!”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Dad said dismissively, but he tore the paper off the box anyway. The cardboard behind it was taped shut. He ripped that away as well, and the second he did, a plethora of tiny plush shapes exploded out. My dad started picking them up and sorted through them to find out that they were small stuffed toys, all of them shaped like different microorganisms. 

“Merry Christmas!” Mikasa said with a cheery grin. 

My dad laughed. “Don’t you think I see enough of these things at work?”

“Well, now you can take them home with you,” my sister replied optimistically.

He sorted them out, and managed to name every single one in the box (common cold, anthrax, chickenpox, mono, white blood cell, and a water bear). He picked up the last one, a stuffed bone cell, and I glared at my sister for a second, wondering if it was supposed to be some kind of sick joke. But my dad didn’t seem to catch on, so I forgot about it.

My dad unearthed a card from the bottom of the box. It was homemade, like something that a child would bring home from school. Mikasa had used all sorts of gel pens and stickers on it in an effort to make it look presentable, but she was no artist. My dad told her it was beautiful anyway. He read it out loud, and it was about then that the guilt hit me. I hadn’t gotten him anything. 

It was strange. He knew me pretty well when it came to getting me presents, but I hadn’t been able to open them in front of him in years. I never felt bad about leaving him out of the fun before. Mikasa started giving him small things every year once she was old enough to consider it, which was the best she could do when she had no actual job. She’d been doing it for years. It had never made me feel inadequate before. But now...

“They’re holding a few events in the city today,” my dad said all of a sudden. “Do you guys want to go? I have the day off, so I’ll be with you anyway. What do you say?”

“Of course!” Mikasa replied right away. And I had no choice but to agree.

 

* * *

 

Three hours later, we were in central Sina, sitting in a little French restaurant for lunch. The place was decked out in tinsel, garland and lights, complete with a tree and a bunch of probably-empty wrapped boxes sitting beneath it. We all had menus and drinks, and the day had gone pretty well up to that point. We had piled into the Highlander and Mikasa had used her phone to browse through the city’s tourism website on the drive there. I sat with her in the backseat and shared the screen, and the both of us conferred with my dad about what sounded like things we would all enjoy.

We settled on a stage adaptation of Charles Dickens’  _ A Christmas Carol _ that would be put on in some theater or another. It wouldn’t be starting until five, so until then, we would wander around the city. Mikasa had wanted to go ice skating in a rink in Asteria Park, which was only open at that time of year. My dad had his doubts about how well I would be able to hold up. So did I, but I was pretty sure that with enough persuasiveness, Mikasa would be able to get us there and get me into a pair of skates.

But before any of that could happen, though, we needed food. So here we were.

“The waiter is taking a pretty long time,” Mikasa pointed out after a minute of silence.

“It does seem a little busy,” my dad replied. “They’re probably short-staffed or something.”

“Do you think they’ll be much longer?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Well,” Mikasa said with finality, “I have to, um... go fix something, so if he comes back, I’m going to order a smoked ham sandwich with sweet potato fries.”

“Right. Where is that on here?”

Mikasa pointed it out on his menu, he nodded and she left for the bathroom, cramming something into the sleeve of her shirt as she walked. My dad and I both knew exactly what she was trying to hide.

“It’s not like we’re strangers,” I said once she was out of earshot. “She could have just said that she needed to change her tampon.”

My dad snickered in response. “No, she couldn’t. It’s way too embarrassing to for her to tell her  _ dad _ that her body is going through a natural female process. It doesn’t matter if he’s a doctor _. _ ”

“What is the thing with girls and periods, anyway?” I asked. “They get so defensive about them.”

“Probably because it gets turned into a social judgement. If a girl is on her period, then other people automatically assume that everything she says and does is going to be moody and irrational.”

“Huh. She seemed okay to me today.”

“Me, too. But don’t be surprised if it doesn’t last. I know how hormones work.”

“How much  _ do _ you know about this stuff, anyway?”

“Enough to have pissed your mother off time after time.”

I had to laugh at that, even if mentioning my mom so lightly stung a little. “I guess it’s Mikasa’s turn to be pissed off, then.”

“I guess it is.” He smiled. It was shallow, though. It was impossible to miss the wistfulness in his voice. He might as well have said  _ My little girl is growing up and getting her period and there is nothing I can do about it.  _ Thankfully, the waiter interrupted, and I didn’t have to think about it anymore. We ordered a few sandwiches and enough sweet potato fries and garlic yogurt sauce to render a golden retriever obese. 

My dad resurrected the conversation once the waiter was gone. “Eren, I need to talk to you about something.”

At the sound of those words, my heart sank and my fingertips went cold. Whatever he meant by that, it couldn’t have been good. Sentences like this were usually followed by either bad news, a lecture or a serious discussion about my plans for the future. I didn’t like suffering through any of my three options, but I was stuck in a restaurant with nowhere to go and no excuses to save me.

“What is it?” I asked, trying to sound like I was not thrown into a state of panic.

My dad looked down at the table for a second, took a breath and folded his hands on the tabletop in a way that told me  _ this discussion is about to get extremely serious _ . My brain replayed the drunken disaster that was Jean’s pool party back in July, and I worried briefly about whether or not Mikasa had told him about it before he finally said something else. “It’s about Levi.”

_ Okay, it doesn’t involve anything illegal. At least I don’t think it does.  _ “What about him?”

“Nothing much. I’m just a little confused is all.”

And so was I. “What is there to be confused about?”

“What is the, er... the situation between you and him?”

I actually sighed out loud this time.  _ Oh, nothing much, Dad, I just realized last night that I’m madly in love with him.  _ “There is no  _ situation _ . There’s nothing going on between us. He’s just an admin of the support group, and we’re all friends.” 

“Are you sure that’s it?” I nodded, and then he said, “You texted me a lot later than I thought  you would last night.”

And with that sentence, the feelings of dread returned. “Oh. About that...”

“Did something happen?” 

“N-no!” I said quickly. “Not... anything bad, anyway. Armin had to talk to Annie and Reiner about something, so he went home with them, and then I was sort of stuck where I was. Levi drove me home afterwards.”

“At twelve-thirty at night?”

I froze, unsure of exactly how much he knew. “Well, he... I...” My dad’s brow furrowed, and I decided I had no choice but to tell the truth. “I didn’t think to ask anyone else for a ride, so he offered to take me home. I remembered that I had to call you when I got back, but my phone was dead, so he let me charge it. Then we were sitting around for a while, and it somehow came up... there’s this little outdoor mall near where he lives.” I unearthed the name from yesterday’s memories. “The... Rhea Square Mall?”

“I’ve heard of it. What about it?”

“He told me that on Christmas Eve, the stores stay open until midnight, and he hadn’t been back there in a while because he doesn’t like going alone. So we drove there together, walked around for a while, and then he took me home when the stores started to close.” 

“Hm,” my dad mumbled pensively. “So... he took you out on a date?”

“It wasn’t a date, Dad!” I defensively replied. “We... we just went out to the mall and wandered around. And I... I  _ might  _ have held his hand for a little bit, because it was cold and it was late... I was just really tired... and not thinking straight, so I...” I had to stop, because the more I said, the worse it all sounded.

My dad looked amused, but only until I stopped talking. As soon as my mouth was shut, the concern was back in his eyes. “Are you thinking about getting serious with him?”

“N-no,” I stuttered, feeling more than a little embarrassed by the hesitation in my voice. “I can’t. He doesn’t want me like that. It’s just... It’s never going to happen.”

“That’s not the way it sounds to me.”

I looked him in the eyes, and his expression made me shudder. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You need to think this through,” he said definitively. “There’s a lot to consider. Like the difference between your ages, first of all.”

“I have been thinking about it, Dad,” I said desperately. “I haven’t been able to stop.”

“He’s a lot older than you, Eren. I know you’ll be seventeen in March, but I’m not sure exactly what the legalities of your situation are.” 

I wasn’t quite sure that four years constituted  _ a lot _ , but any age gap could be considered  _ a lot _ when there could potentially be a legal age of consent in the mix. “I know. And I’ve looked it up. Apparently people as young as sixteen can get  _ married _ , as long as their parents give consent.” My dad’s aggression seemed to deflate a little, and I felt the need to add, “Is that going to be an issue? Is it because of the... the  _ gay _ thing?”

“No, Eren, it has nothing to do with that,” my dad affirmed, trying to sound as sure as he could. “It’s just that he’s an adult. A young one, maybe. He could probably be  _ my son _ , if I had been irresponsible enough. But I still don’t know if you’re aware of what you’re getting yourself into.”

“But isn’t that what love is like? You never really have any idea.”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, the table fell silent. My dad stared at me, like he was a deer and I was a pair of headlights. A second later, the entire world came crashing down over my head as I realized what the fuck I had just said. I had let the word  _ love  _ slip out of my mouth without even realizing it.

“Fuck,” I croaked as I let my head fall forward onto the table.

Meanwhile, my dad pressed his hands to his forehead and dug his fingers into his hair. “Oh my god,” he murmured exasperatedly into his palms. And then, just like that, he was laughing. I looked up from my sleeves to see him trying to push his glasses back into place and hide his smile behind his hands. Eventually he gave up and beamed in my direction, chuckling the whole time. “You are in way too deep, Eren.”

I sighed and responded, “I know.”

Mikasa then decided to come back to the table. Dad and I stopped talking, and she started up a new conversation. Our food came a few minutes later, and none of us mentioned Levi again.

 

* * *

 

Christmas Day, as a whole, was pretty great.

I hadn’t been to Sina in a long time. I hadn’t gone for the sole purpose of  _ being there _ in a long time, anyway. I’d passed through for a few excursions, like short outings with my dad or trips for Mikasa’s tournaments. It had been an even longer time since I had seen Sina during the holidays. I had forgotten how enthusiastic the city would always get about the season. It was probably all a display to draw more tourists in and attract people to their vast shopping district, but still. I couldn’t get over how pretty it was.

Everywhere I looked there were lights. Massive, ornately decorated fir trees towered in store windows. The light dusting of snow over city left everything with a soft, sparkly finish. Sure, it was gross and slushy in most places, but everywhere it hadn’t fallen on the ground, the aesthetic value remained. The city put a lot of effort into looking nice for a few weeks out of the year. Sina wasn’t the Rhea Square Mall, but it came in as a close second.

Mikasa dragged us to the skating rink, just as I had expected she would. By some miracle, I managed to stay on my feet for a whole hour before I decided I was too tired and my dad pointed out that we would have to get moving if we wanted to get to that  _ A Christmas Carol _ show on time. I didn’t want to walk because of Mikasa’s genius ice skating idea, so Dad agreed to let us take the subway instead. We arrived with just under an hour left before the show started, so we still had time to wander around in the nearby shops beforehand. I enjoyed the show, which is saying a lot for a guy who really doesn’t give a shit about theatre. We picked up dinner afterward at a small sandwich shop that was way more crowded than it should have been, then went home.

I had been a lot more active on Christmas Day than what I was used to. I fell asleep on the car ride back to our house, and Mikasa had to act as a crutch in order to get me into the house. As soon as I was inside, I brushed my teeth, stripped my clothes off and collapsed into bed. 

I made sure to thank my dad before doing any of that, though. I had never felt a need to do it before, and I wasn’t one hundred percent sure why I was doing it now. He hadn’t done something like this with Mikasa and I in a long time. In fact, I was having a hard time remembering the last entire day he had spent with us. Still, I thanked him. I felt like I had to. That didn’t change how much I meant every word that I said. I told him that I appreciated the time he’d spent on us more than he could ever guess. Then he made some kind of jibe about how I having Levi there would have been icing on the cake, and I said goodnight to him and left as disgustedly as I could.

My cell phone still had a decent amount of battery life when I checked it, despite not having been charged since Christmas Eve. I also happened to be thinking about Levi before I fell asleep, as I usually did. Call it Christmas magic, but something strange occurred to me as I was getting comfortable on my pillows. Before I knew it, my phone was in my hand and I was scrolling through my contacts to find him. I pressed call. His phone rang four times before he picked up.

“Hello?”

“Happy birthday.”

“Eren?” was the first thing Levi said. Then “Oh my god, you remembered.” was the second.

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling, even though he couldn’t see it. “Yep.”

“But... how...why?” he stammered. He sounded stunned. He really hadn’t thought that I would remember.

“Because I care, Levi,” I answered flatly, trying to sound like I wasn’t boiling over with joy. “You’re not the only one who does that around here.”

“Oh.” His voice sounded the same as it always did, but I could practically hear him starting to smile. “Th-thanks, brat.”

“You’re welcome,” I said triumphantly. “So... how was your Christmas?”

“Merry, I guess,” he replied. “I didn’t really do anything. And Erwin wouldn’t let me work today. He insisted that I needed a break, so I stayed home and spent my time on essays.”

Well, that answer was disappointing beyond belief. “Wow. That’s....”

“I know how it is. You don’t have to sugarcoat it.”

“Are you... I don’t know, okay with how it went?”

“Yeah. I don’t really give a shit about how my holidays go anymore. Besides, four-eyes will probably drag me into something later this week anyhow.”

“Did anyone do anything for your birthday?”

Levi paused for a bit, as if he needed the time to remember. “A few people. Everyone on my nursing team wished me a happy birthday. So did Hanji, and Erwin gave me the day off. Then you called. So that amounts to... seven people?”

I laughed, shortly and sadly. “Not bad.”

“Yeah. It’s something,” he said. I couldn’t get past how tired he sounded, in spite of what he had told me about getting more sleep.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Levi?”

“Yes, Eren. I’m okay,” he insisted. “Are you? You sound a little sleepy.”

“I’m okay. Just tired, I think.”

“Then get some sleep. I’ll be seeing you soon. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I had to end the phone call then. If I hadn’t, I might have stayed up all night talking to him. I had to pass out for at least a little while if I wanted to be stable the next day.

 

* * *

 

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to pass out for very long before my phone starting ringing. 

I was already fast asleep in my bed when it happened. My room was dark, and my phone lit up the space in the corner of my dresser where it sat. Half-conscious, I fumbled for the switch on my bedside lamp and flicked it on before reaching for my phone. I’d be damned if I would sit in the dark and talk on the phone. I picked up my phone and answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Eren, I need help.”

It was Armin on the other end. He sounded breathless. “Whoa. Armin, are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, I-I’m fine. I think. I’m not sure.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“That’s because I  _ don’t know _ if I am,” he quipped. “Listen, something’s just happened. It’s not bad. At least I don’t think it is. I have no idea. I just really need your help. Like, now.” He was talking too fast. There was no way that there was nothing wrong.

“Whoa, whoa, calm down, Armin,” I said gently. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Eren...” he murmured, and the line was quiet for a long time before he said anything more.

“I think I’m in love.”

He might as well have told me he’d been hit by a submarine and I was talking to a ghost. That probably wouldn’t have been even half as surprising.

“Y-you’re... what?! With who?”

“I-I know how it sounds, but... I don’t know how else to explain it. I’ve just been feeling so different lately. It’s been going on for weeks, and I couldn’t keep ignoring it. Not after last night, and...”

“Armin, who are you in love with?” I cut in fiercely.

He had to stop for a while longer before his answer finally came out.

“Annie. It’s... it’s Annie.”

“Annie?!” I repeated. All of a sudden, I was wide awake. “You mean tiny, blonde, angry-and-silent-all-the-time Annie? We’re thinking of the same Annie, right?”

“Eren, we don’t know anyone else named Annie.”

“I know, but... Annie? Seriously?”

“Yes, Eren, I am serious! Now, just...” He paused for a second and quieted down. “Please, just listen to me for a minute.”

I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me. “I’m listening.”

“A lot of things have been happening to me lately,” he started. “ _ A lot _ of things. Most of them were with the support group, and the people we’ve lost so far... you know. And Bertolt was a really harsh blow for everybody. I mean, this was his and Reiner’s last year with the group anyway, but... they were so important. They were the goddamn  _ adhesive _ that keeps this group together. They were going to become admins next year. Then we lost one, and now the other is struggling to keep it together-”

“I know. Get on with it.”

“Okay, okay. So, through all of this stuff, Annie has sort of... I don’t really know how to put it other than she’s  _ attaching _ to me. Like, when I first joined, she would barely talk to me-”

“She didn’t talk to anyone.”

“Eren!”

“Sorry.” I wasn’t.

Armin sighed and started up again. “Anyway, she was super close with Reiner and Bertolt. After I knew her for long enough, they sort of... I don’t know, let me into their group within the group. Reiner probably would have done it anyway, but I think that Annie somehow beat him to it. That was back in November. It happened while you were in the hospital. Remember?”

I groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

“So I’ve been close with them since then,” he went on, ignoring me. “And then, when everything started happening around December, and things started going to shit for Bertolt, he and Reiner started spending all this time together, so Annie turned to me, I guess. And we’ve just been together a lot more since then.” He stopped for a second and sighed. “You and I both know that she doesn’t like people. She told me herself, but for some reason she’s let me get so close to her. It just makes me feel... This sounds so stupid, but I can’t find any other way to put it. I feel  _ special _ . It’s amazing knowing that she  _ chose  _ me.”

“What happened last night?” I asked after a second’s pause.

“Well... first of all, it’s never happened to me before, so bear with me, okay?”

“Oh my god, Armin, did you fuck her in Reiner’s neon?”

“What?! N-no! No,” Armin sputtered defensively. “Nothing like that. She just asked me if I could have Reiner take me home, so we could have some time to talk. It was supposed to be between him and me, but it was okay for her to be there, since she already knew what it would be about. It was just emotional stuff, really. He’s in a lot of pain, and he needed me to listen for a while. We drove to Annie’s house, and we hung around there for a while. We were there for about half an hour, just talking things over, the two of us in a kind of group hug around Reiner. Then her dad came around to remind us that it was late, and I had told my grandpa that I would be home around eleven, so we had to leave her there. Reiner went out to start the car, and then... we were standing there in the doorway. Neither of was saying anything, and neither of us moved, and I... I didn’t  _ want _ to move. Then I said goodnight to her, because I didn’t want to keep Reiner waiting, but then she... she came close to me, and she whispered in my ear, like she did at the party. She said _'G_ _ oodnight, have a merry Christmas' _ first, and that was all I thought it would be. So I tried to draw back, and she stopped me.”

“What else did she say?”

“She didn’t say anything. She just got really close to me. Her hand was right on the back of my neck, and  _ Jesus Christ _ , Eren, I felt like I was on  _ fire _ . Then she whispered, ‘ _ Thank you for doing this _ .’ And... I wasn’t even thinking, I just... When she let me pull back, I touched her face.”

“You touched her face?” I deadpanned. “Oh, you filthy bastard.”

“Shut up! It was just a stupid thing I did on impulse, but it was romantic, okay? I... I was standing in the doorway, hand cupped around her face, just like in the movies. And I could have kissed her, Eren. I totally could have. And... I  _ wanted to _ . I-I  _ have  _ wanted to. I’ve wanted to kiss her since November, when you asked me if I liked her, and I just said yes! It just slipped out, and then I thought it over and it turned out to be true! I... I think I...”

I had to stop him there. Armin sounded like he was on the verge of tears. “ _ Love _ is a pretty heavy term to be throwing around, Armin. Are you sure that you...” I almost choked on the word as I said it. “... _ love  _ her?”

“It’s been months, Eren. And it’s only been getting worse. If that’s not what it is, I should probably start taking pills for it.”

Neither of us said a word for what felt like forever. I had nothing to say to that. I felt like enough had happened that day, but apparently the world still wasn’t done playing with me. Now my best friend was convinced that he was in love and I felt like I had been hit by a truck. It took what must have been a solid hour for me to figure out that I  _ did _ have something to say. The only problem was that I had been trying to keep it quiet at all costs. Armin would be the first person I hadn’t told on accident. I was coming out to him, in just about every sense of the term.

Whatever. He had told me how he felt about Annie. He deserved this much.

“Hey, Armin,” I said cautiously. “I-if it makes you feel any better, I... I feel the same way, too.”

“You... what?” Armin murmured, sounding as if I’d just told him I was pregnant. “Who is it? Is it me?”

“It’s not!” I said, laughing. “I-it’s not you.”

“Then who is it?”

“I... listen, I want to tell you, but... just this once. And you have to promise not to laugh.”

“Okay. I promise.”

“And you can’t tell anyone that I said this to you.”

“Just tell me who the hell you’re in love with, Eren.”

“Okay, okay. Fine. It’s...”

_ Here it goes. You can’t back down now. _

“It’s Levi.”

The line was silent for an unbearably long time before Armin finally choked out his response.

“Levi? You mean LPN Levi?”

“Yes.”

“The admin of the support group?”

“Yes.”

“The one who was your nurse last summer?”

“Jesus Christ, Armin, we’re talking about the same person.”

“B-but...” Armin sputtered. “But you... what? Y-you’re... what?”

I sighed into the phone. “Yeah, that was what I thought when I figured it out, too.”

“Eren, you never told me you were gay!”

“I-I’m not gay, Armin,” I shot back, somewhat unsteadily. “At least I don’t think I am. Levi is the first guy I’ve ever... felt this way about. The first person of any gender that I’ve felt this way about, really.”

“I... wow.” I didn’t want to think that the revelation of my own sexual ambiguity had rendered Armin speechless, but the empty airwaves between us definitely told me that it had.

“Are you still there?” I asked nervously.

“Yeah, I am, I’m just... thinking,” my best friend replied. “I just don’t understand. How long has this been going on?”

“No idea,” I did my best to answer. “I started feeling, um...  _ things _ for him back in August... at least that was when I finally started taking them seriously. The whole...  _ love _ thing... I only figured out last night.”

“What spurred that so suddenly?”

“This whole thing that happened last night after you left with Reiner. I could get into it, but I’m kind of tired and it might take a while to-”

“Eren, did you sleep with him?!” Apparently, now it was Armin’s turn to have his mind in the gutter. 

“No!” I snapped. “Holy shit, no!”

“Well...does he know?”

I swallowed convulsively, trying to drown the knot that was tightening in my throat. “No, he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Why would I tell him something like that?”

“Because if you feel that strongly about him, he should probably know.”

“First of all, I have no idea how strong it actually is,” I protested. “And second of all, if that’s the case, then why haven’t you said anything to Annie?”

Armin paused, then admitted, “Good point.”

“So what do we do now?”

Another pause. “I have no idea, Eren.”

“I don’t know about you, but sleeping it off seems like a pretty appealing idea right now.”   
“I guess you’re right,” Armin said. “We should get together and talk about this sometime, though. When we’re both actually awake.”

“Are you busy tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so. Rose Community has two weeks off for the holiday break, so I’m at home pretty much twenty-four-seven now.”

“You could come over here, if you want.”

“Sounds good. It’ll be nice to see something other than the inside of my own house.”

“I’ll see you then, okay?”

“Okay,” Armin said definitively. “Goodnight, Eren. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

I hung up, placed my phone on the dresser and fell asleep before I could even remember to turn my lamp off.

 

* * *

 

Just as he had promised, Armin showed up on my doorstep the next day. And, just as he had promised, he spent the next two and a half hours in my basement explaining to me everything that had happened between him and Annie over the past months that I had apparently been missing.

There wasn’t much that he hadn’t been able to clarify over the phone. Most of it I had already inferred from what he had told me. Annie was selectively social, and apparently she had selected him. From July onward he felt driven to be with her as much as possible, to prove that he was worthy of her affections and whatever other shit he wanted to do to indirectly proclaim his love for her. 

If it even was love.

There hadn’t been much of a precursor to what he had told me the night before. All I had seen of Armin’s actions toward Annie were normal friend stuff. Maybe a little touchier than  _ normal  _ friend stuff. Then again, I had figured a while back that Armin was a little more tactile than most people. That wasn’t to say I wasn’t totally okay with it, since Armin was probably the one of the best cuddlers I had ever met in my life.

Touchiness aside, I still wasn’t convinced that he was sure of what he was saying. He had told me before anything else that he had never felt this way before, which I took to mean that he had never been  _ in a relationship  _ before. 

Also, it took me six months of pining over Levi to figure out how deep my feelings actually ran. So how the  _ fuck  _ had Armin figured it out so fast?

Probably because he wasn’t trying to run from it like I was. 

“But how are you sure that it’s  _ love _ ?” I asked him for the eighty thousandth time that day.   


“But how are you sure that it’s  _ love _ ?” I asked him for the eighty thousandth time that day.   
“Because it’s not just physical. It’s  _ emotional _ ,” he explained for the not-eighty thousandth time. “I wasn’t attracted to her the minute I saw her. I was more  _ drawn _ . She let me get close, and things went from there. I was friends with her first, then... other things happened.” He blushed a little.

I stared at him for a second and said, “I’m still not convinced.”

Armin looked offended. “Why not? I’ve explained it, like, ten times!”

“Because this is all sounds like it happened way too fast.”

“I already told you, it’s not love at first sight. I’ve been friends with her since June.”   
“I’m not saying that it was. It just sounds to me like you suddenly woke up one day and realized you wanted to kiss her face.”   
“That was not how it happened!” Armin protested, then shied away and continued, “It was a gradual thing. I mean, I always thought she was kind of pretty, but I never fantasized about her or anything. I never wanted anything romantic, but then... I started thinking about her all the time and always wanting to be with her, then when you were gone in November I wanted it even more. It got so bad I started texting every day, just to hear from her.”

I nodded, not really listening to him ramble. “Honestly, that just sounds like friend stuff to me.”

“If it’s  _ just friend stuff _ , then how come I don’t want to make out with  _ you  _ whenever  _ we’re _ together?”

I shut up right away. He had a point.

“I just don’t know, Armin. You never mentioned it before, and I can’t take it seriously this fast.”

Armin sighed. “Fine,” he surrendered. “Maybe it isn’t really love. I have no idea what it is. But as long as I have to put up with it, I can talk to you about it, right?”

“This might have been easier if you had talked to me about it  _ before _ it got this far.”

Armin scoffed. “Whatever. Anyway, I was thinking,” he added coyly. “we’ve been talking about me this whole time. How come you haven’t said anything about Levi?”

Now it was my turn to start blushing. “Because you were the one who called me!”

“But you said you were in love too,” Armin and his stupid hard drive of a memory pointed out. “I spent this long talking about why I think I am. I think I deserve at least a little explanation.”

I took a deep breath and definitively said, “I don’t know why.”

I might as well have told Armin his puppy had died, because the expression on his face would have been the same. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No,” I insisted. “I swear to god, I don’t know how the hell any of it happened.”

“Okay, let me get this straight,” he scoffed. “You just spent two hours refusing to believe that I am in love with someone, and now that you have a chance to tell me about your take on the topic, you can’t even explain why you think I’m wrong?”

“No, that’s not it, it’s just...” I scrabbled for reasons inside my head. “I don’t know. I had no control over what I was feeling, and-”

“And you think  _ I  _ did?”

“No! I just feel like this sort of thing shouldn’t be so... I don’t know, straightforward?”

Armin simmered down and shrugged. “Well, everyone’s experience is different, I guess.”

“I guess,” I agreed. “Maybe mine just happens to involve a shitload more confusion than yours. I mean, I didn’t even know I  _ could be  _ attracted to guys before Levi.”

“Yeah. How did that happen, anyway?”

I shuddered internally. I should have known that question was coming. “I’m not sure. Maybe I was just always like this. I’ve been able to find guys  _ attractive _ , but never  _ been attracted _ to one before.” 

“But you’re not just attracted to him,” Armin said. “You said you love him. In fact, you’ve done it twice now. So why?”

I stopped talking and keeled over on the couch, letting myself deflate in Armin’s lap. “That’s exactly the problem. I shouldn’t be.”

Armin didn’t have much to say with me after that. Netflix came around to save us, and the rest of the day dissolved into a marathon of poorly made horror movies and platonic cuddling on the couch. 

At the very least I didn’t have to talk anymore.

 

* * *

 

Before the whole tragedy with Bertolt had gone down, the Youth Cancer Support Group had planned on making winter break one long chain of group meetings. Then people’s plans and other complications got in the way, and the week-long singularity of YCSG had to be cut down to one informal get-together at Beans on the twenty-seventh that only about half the group could come to. Connie and Sasha were off on their respective vacations. Reiner was out of commission, and so was Annie. Then Marco informed the group that he and Jean would have to leave that afternoon if Marco’s family was to make it to the ski resort before nightfall.

Long story short, support group contact was cut down to a meeting that started at noon.

My dad had driven us there, then went out to run some errands. He told us to text him when we needed to be brought home, if we needed to be brought home. Then he left us to our own devices.

I headed for the table where the support group had gathered. Hanji wasted no time in springing out of her seat to greet me.

“Hi, Eren!” she squealed, crushing me in a hug. “Thanks so much for coming!”

“M-my pleasure,” I croaked. She let go of me, and I grabbed the first open chair that I saw. 

“Hey, brat,” the person beside me said as soon as I sat down. 

My head whipped in the direction of the voice, then a hot, energized blush began creeping into my cheeks. I had somehow managed to sit down directly next to Levi. 

“How’s your holiday been so far?” he asked.

“Fine,” I stammered in reply. “More than fine, actually. My dad’s home for a few days, so I’ve been able to spend a lot more time with him. Which is a nice change of pace.” I smiled a little at the mention of it. I was so fucking proud of the fact that my dad was home for once.

Levi returned my smile as much as he could. “Really? That’s awesome.”

“Has Hanji dragged you out to anything yet?”

“She has, actually. Last night she tried to get me to go out to a club with her and a bunch of her friends from Sina. I think it was just because she needed a designated driver.” He smirked, and I laughed. 

I gave the coffeeshop a quick once-over. Mikasa hadn’t come to the table with me, and I was starting to wonder why. She had gone to the counter, ordered a couple of Beans’s “holiday special” drinks, and now was apparently enthralled by the chalkboard menu on the opposite wall. As I watched, Hanji got up to pester her. A few seconds later she dragged my sister over to the table, drinks in hand. Mikasa shoved one in my direction, then glanced around the table. There were two empty chairs left. One was next to Levi, and the other next to Jean. She glanced warily at Hanji, then sighed and settled in the one next to Jean. He didn’t look at her as she sat down, but I could see him bristling as soon as he sensed her presence.

Even to someone as un-perceptive as me, it was still obvious that there was a ton of tension between them.

The meeting progressed pretty normally from that point onward. We sat in our circle, sipped our drinks if we had ordered any, and bitched to each other about our problems. As it was, there weren’t many problems that we weren’t already aware of. Marco brought up how he was a little disappointed that his illness had kept him from seeing a warm part of the country when he probably needed it most, but that was the worst of it. Armin never said that he was in almost-love with one of the groupies who wasn’t there. Levi never said anything about the Christmas he had spent alone. I never said anything about Christmas Eve, Rhea Square Mall and how that night had rocked my entire existence. And above all, no one even made an obscure reference to Bertolt or what had happened to him. I guessed that it was most people’s natural instinct to avoid dredging things up when they caused pain. Sad that it wasn’t an instinct that I was born with.

Marco’s mom texted him after the first hour of the meeting, so he and Jean said their goodbyes and left together. After that, there wasn’t very much for us to talk about. We decided to adjourn the meeting where it stood. Mikasa sent a text to our dad, and I did the same just in case he didn’t get the first message. Armin called his grandpa, who happened to be at a book club meeting nearby. He was gone within the next ten minutes. Not much later, so was Hanji.

Levi, Mikasa and I were the only ones left at the table. None of us were talking. Our cups were empty, and a tension hung like a thick fog over all three of us. Mikasa’s eyes stayed glued to her phone.

“Has he answered yet?” I eventually asked.

“No,” was Mikasa’s only reply. I shifted in my chair and glanced over at Levi. He was staring off into the distance. I had the vague feeling he was doing it for the same reason as why Mikasa had fixated herself on her phone. The two of them wouldn’t have sat in such close proximity for this long if there had been any choice in the matter.

A second passed, and Levi’s eyes wandered over to me. I startled a bit, caught up in the idea that he had felt me staring at him. The feeling passed, and I said, “Hey, um, not to be rude, but... is there any reason why you’re still sitting here with us?”

“Of course there is,” he replied. “You’re still here, and you can’t go anywhere until your dad shows up. I’m not gonna leave you two stranded here.”

“Oh,” I murmured and went back to staring at the table. I felt the toe of a sneaker nudge my ankle under the table. I glanced over at Levi again, and caught the faintest flicker of a smirk pull on the corner of his mouth. My heart fluttered, then my phone buzzed in my pocket. I shuffled it out to check my inbox. On the other side of the table, Mikasa’s message tone chimed. 

“It must be Dad,” she said. She unlocked her screen, read his message and frowned. I soon found out that we had both been sent the same thing.

**Dad: The lab was short-staffed today. I was called in for an emergency. Can’t come right now. So sorry! Can anyone give you a ride home?**

I put down my phone and turned to Levi. “Listen, I know I’ve asked you way too many times before, but-”

“Your dad’s not coming, is he?”

I breathed out and dropped my gaze to the floor. “No.”  _ Dead-on as usual, Levi. _

Levi sighed and leaned in over the table, drawing closer to us both. “Listen, brat.” He glanced pointedly at Mikasa and added, “You listen, too. Because I think you both need to get this message. As unbelievable as it might be to the two of you, this support group is one of my highest priorities. It’s important to me, and the people in it are important to me. That includes you. I care about this group, and I care about you guys. You don’t have to be terrified of asking me for help, especially when you’re backed into a corner like this. It’s my job as an admin to be here for you guys when you need me. Now, what was it that you were going to ask me?”

I didn’t even need to answer him. Mikasa seething in the chair next to me made it clear enough what would come next. I picked up my phone and sent a quick reply message to my dad.

**Me: Its okay, we have a ride home. See you tonight**

With that, the three of us left Beans for Levi’s green Soul. We were quiet on the ride back to my house, like we had been at the table in Beans, only it was a different kind of silence. It was comfortable, or about as comfortable as any situation that involved me could be. Mikasa kept to herself in the backseat, and Levi had left his who-knows-how-old iPod plugged into the stereo and on shuffle. I leaned my head against the window, listening to the soft melody of some indie rock song that I didn’t recognize. 

In a few minutes, Levi had pulled into our driveway and shifted into park. He turned to look at me. “Hey. Did you fall asleep, brat?”

“No.” I sat up and turned to him. “Just relaxed.”

By then, Mikasa had already opened the backseat door and started climbing out of the car. “You should probably get going,” Levi pointed out.

“Yeah. Probably.” I undid my seatbelt, went for the door handle and stopped. There was something I had forgotten. Something important. “Wait. Levi?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you come in for a little bit? It’s important.”

He sighed and glanced at my sister, who was already halfway to the front door. “I don’t know how good an idea that would be.”

“It’ll only take a minute. I promise.”

Levi took a second to think, then said, “Fine.” He turned off the car and climbed out.

Mikasa had already unlocked the door and disappeared upstairs by the time we reached the house. I stopped at the front door and turned back to Levi. “You want to come in?”

“That’s okay,” he replied. “I can wait here.”

“Okay. I’ll be quick.” I left the front door open and ran upstairs to my room. The bag was sitting somewhere in there. I had left it unwrapped, still in the little gift bag that had been handed to me when I had bought it from some random store in Sina. I hadn’t had the time to make it look any nicer. But I had finally remembered it, conveniently when Levi was with me.  I found the bag sitting in the corner, next to the place where I wedged my writing notebook. I snatched it up and dashed back to the front door.

“What’s that?” Levi asked when I reappeared, the bag held tightly in my hands.

“You’ll see,” I answered. I held out the bag toward him. “Just open it.”

Levi’s eyes went blank for a second,then they widened as a smile broke out on his face. “Are you serious, brat? You didn’t have to-”

“Just shut up and open it!” I insisted. 

Levi sighed and took the bag from me, his smile still lingering on his lips. He dug delicately through the tissue paper, and the first thing he took out was a necklace. It was a single pendant hung from a black leather cord; a shark tooth wound up with silver wire. 

“Merry Christmas,” I said. 

Levi looked up at me, as if he were waiting for me to say more. The bag was too big to be just a necklace. He started digging through it again, and sure enough, there was one more gift waiting for him. It was a white tee shirt, but weathered until it looked like recycled paper. A black ink-splatter silkscreen of crows taking flight decorated the front. 

“And happy birthday,” I finished. 

Levi didn’t say a word to respond. He stood deathly still in the doorway, glancing back and forth between me and the necklace and shirt he held in his hands.

“I’m sorry if the shirt doesn’t fit,” I added nervously. “I didn’t know what size you are, so I sort of guessed.”

“Thank you,” Levi murmured.

My heart spazzed out for a second, then stopped. “Huh?”

“Thank you so much, Eren,” he went on. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”

I stared at him as he carefully refolded the shirt and placed it back in the bag, layering the necklace on top of it. I hadn’t known what he would do when I gave them to him. Probably thank me, since it was customary. Then I remembered everything he had told me on Christmas Eve. I had no idea how long it had been since the last time someone had remembered to give him two presents for December twenty-fifth.

“You’re welcome,” I said weakly. “I was just thinking of you.”

“Then thanks for that, too,” Levi replied. He looped the handle of the gift bag over his wrist, and before I knew it his arms were around me and I was being hugged. 

I held him close to me, clinging to him until he started to unwind his arms and pulled away. My heart raced uncontrollably in my chest. He stood back a bit, still unbearably close to me, gazing at me with a look on his face that was almost like the one I had seen in Rhea Square. Almost. This one was a little different. It was more hopeful.

I took a breath and tried to speak. “Listen, Levi, I...” 

I could have said it. He was there. He was listening. It would have been so easy. 

_ Levi, I love you. _

“I’ll be here if you need me, too.”

Levi’s fingers tightened on the bag, his eyes misting up the longer he gazed at me. “Okay.”

_ I love you. _

“Okay.”

He turned away, and I watched him walk through the snow and back to his Soul. I wanted to lean out the door and shout it to him.  _ I love you. _ I wanted him to hear it before he drove away.

But I didn’t say anything. He didn’t hear me. So I watched him disappear down the street, shut the door behind me, and hated myself for not being able to speak up when he would have listened.

It wasn’t just my cancer that was killing me anymore. 

 

* * *

 

The rest of the winter holiday passed by a lot faster than I was expecting it to.

It shouldn’t have been all that surprising, since it was only one week out of fifty-two others in the year. Still, I wasn’t prepared for the days to slip past me so quickly. Mikasa was available most of the time, and even my dad on a few days. We went on a few outings together, usually to the Ermich mall to see a movie. I probably saw more movies in that week than I had seen in the past three months. Granted, one was taken up by a hospital stay, but I was still counting it.

The days that weren’t spent with what was left of my family were spent with what was left of the Youth Cancer Support Group. The members who were willing to come out of their shells and socialize, anyway. That mostly included Armin, Marco, and Jean. Marco’s family came back from the ski resort after three days. As soon as they returned, Marco managed to drag Jean out to Atlas Park with us one day. Armin convinced me to come and hang out with him and Annie more than once. That went exactly how I thought it would- quietly and kind of awkward. Also, her dad. I met him the second time Armin had caught me, when we had to take her home and wound up spending an extra hour at her house. Michael Leonhart was pretty cool. Also strangely okay with two boys being alone with his daughter in her room (which, I should mention, was tiny and absolutely covered in band and anime posters). I figured that was because the last two boys she had last let in there were both flaming homosexuals, and the ones she was currently letting in were unassuming little cancer twinks. 

Awkwardness aside, the gathering of days was a fun one. That was probably why I woke up one morning and suddenly came to the tragic realization that they were all gone, and it had magically become December 31st.

The rest of the details came back to me slowly over the course of the morning. Jean was hosting another party. My dad would have his own function to attend in Sina, so he would be away for the night. Nicole was back at Jean’s for winter break, so she would be bringing people over. Also, alcohol. That was a factor I would definitely have to take into consideration.

Unlike the last time someone in the YCSG had thrown a party, Mikasa would be coming to this one. Even with all the messy-breakup shit that had gone down between her and Jean, she still wasn’t going to pass up free food and an excuse to supervise me and Levi at all times.

Levi said he was going to Jean’s party. Did I forget to mention that? Because the group chat message went something like this.

**Seabiscuit Scumbag Kirschtein: Guys. New Year’s Eve party at my place. Parents are in LA for the weekend. It’s gonna be huge.**

**Stonnie: Im in.**

**Potato Queen: YAAS 8D**

**Coconut: Sounds fun. What time does it start?**

**HellPN: Nicole already gave me an invite. I am so gonna be there!**

And about twenty messages later,

**Levi: I’m free that night. I’ll drive Hanji.**

**HellPN: Levi wtf i have a car! youre not my dad :P**

**Levi: I might as well be.**

**Me: My dad is out of town, but I’ll find a way there.**

Then the conversation with Mikasa went something like this.

“I saw you replied to the groupchat.”

“Yeah. You going too?”

“Yes.”

*insert definitive turn-and-walk-away here*

That was on the twenty-ninth. At least I thought that was what day it was. Mikasa had started to lose track too, for probably the first time in her life. 

Most of the thirty-first went to sleeping at random intervals and preparing myself for the night ahead of me. I made a mental checklist of things I had done wrong at the first party that I had to remember not to do at this one. For instance, if there’s beer, don’t touch it. Don’t go into the kitchen alone, or wherever else the alcohol might be stashed. Always stay with the group. Don’t get drunk again. Don’t make your ex-nurse become your current nurse all over again. Don’t kiss your ex-nurse when the ball drops. Don’t go home with your ex-nurse and fuck him at four in the morning, no matter how bad you want to.

The last few reminders I might have added on a bit of a whim.

That checklist was the only thing that let me feel safe enough to let the Arlert Accord drop me off with Armin and Mikasa in front of the Kirschtein estate at seven-thirty PM on December thirty-first.

As far as Jean and Nicole’s joint parties went, this one was infinitely better than the first, probably due to the fact that I had been to enough of Jean’s parties by then to know how they operated. That was why we had shown up a little late, when there would be a good number of people in the house to get over the initial waves of awkwardness that always permeate parties before enough energy builds up to make them fun. 

Armin ran ahead to ring the doorbell. I followed him, just a tad slower, and Mikasa lagged behind the both of us. She had her on reasons for doing so. I’m not one to go dragging anyone’s breakup into any situation, recent or not, but... it was totally because of the breakup.

The door opened and Connie was standing there. His face drew up into its usual inebriated grin. “Hellooooo, friends! Get in! The party’s just getting started!”

“I would hope so, otherwise we showed up on time for nothing,” Armin said humorously as he stepped inside. He looked back at us. “Well, I’m going to the kitchen. Jean said he took out the chocolate fountain and they’re using it tonight!”

“You have fun with that. We’re going to scope out the rest of the group first,” I replied. Armin nodded and dove into the crowd, disappearing almost instantly. I felt Mikasa bump up against my back. Her hand slid to my elbow and took hold of my arm. I glanced back at her before I started fording through the sea of people.

The entire Kirschstein house had been set up like a well-furnished nightclub. There were balloons and streamers taped just about everywhere. Music echoed off of the expansive walls, and the place was packed with people. Without the pool and patio to cut down on the congestion, there was barely any room to walk without bumping into something, knocking over someone’s drink or grinding awkwardly on some stranger. Moving through the crowd was devastatingly slow, but we eventually searched out our friends in the chaos. They had claimed Jean’s bedroom as their gathering place, mostly because that was one of the few places that hadn’t been invaded by other people. 

Marco, Jean, Annie and Sasha were sitting smashed together on the end of Jean’s bed, engrossed in probably one of the most intense games of Mario Kart that I had ever seen. Mikasa and I looked at each other for a second. Nobody seemed to notice us. Then someone from out in the hallway ambushed us from behind, shoved us into the room and screamed, “HI GUYS!”

After staggering to regain my balance, I turned around to see Hanji behind us, bouncing excitedly on her heels. The red cup in her hand assured me that she had already been enjoying Nicole’s rich-girl-with-connections hospitality.

“Hanji!” Mikasa exclaimed, sounding almost relieved. “You’re here!” I glanced over to Jean’s bed. Everyone in the room was staring at us. At least we had gotten their attention.

“Of course I am. Nikki invited me  _ personally _ ,” she said, though I was pretty sure it wasn’t true. Also I was pretty sure she wasn’t close enough to Nicole to be calling her Nikki. “I’m not going to turn something like that down. Levi is here too... somewhere. He drove me, but I’m not sure where he is right now.” She looked around the room, as if she expected him to be there.

“I heard about the chocolate fountain. He’s probably-” I said before I was cut short by a small but heavy weight hitting me squarely in the back. I spun around only to feel an arm snake around my waist and squeeze.  _ Hard.  _ Annie’s head weaved under my arm and turned to grin wickedly at me. Mikasa then pulled her away to give her a hug. 

“Happy New Year to you, too, Annie,” she said brightly.

I walked into the room and was met with first Sasha, then Marco. Jean stayed by his bed, still guarding his controller. “‘Sup, Jaeger?” he said coldly. 

“Not much,” I replied with just as much flippancy. “You saw me just a few days ago. I thought you would know what’s up.”

“I don’t pay very much attention.” He glanced over at the space by the door, where Mikasa was still being chatted up by Hanji and Sasha, then Marco thankfully blocked his view.

“So, Eren, you have any resolutions this year?” he asked, tactfully sitting down between Jean and me. “I’m making a point of asking everyone.”

“Masturbate more often and be way less honest,” I replied. 

Marco laughed. “Seriously, Eren. Is there anything you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I really think that whatever there was to improve about myself, joining this disaster of a support group has done most of it.”

“Awww, Eren,” Marco said, his smile so bright I felt like I should have been going blind. “Do you really think that?”

“I don’t know why I shouldn’t,” I replied, his smile spreading to me. “It’s true.”

“Well... I’m sure the group feels fixed by you, too.” He leaned towards me and affectionately nudged my shoulder. “I know I certainly do.”

I could practically smell Jean angrily smoldering next to us on the bed.

Sasha (predictably) left for the kitchen and Annie pulled Mikasa back to the end of Jean’s bed to take up her controller again. Mikasa settled down towards the headboard for pretty much the same reason I had  Marco as my shield. The peace didn’t last, since Hanji came crashing down on all of us as soon as the game started up again. Mikasa managed to calm her down and keep her still enough for the others to finish their race. Then, a few minutes later, Sasha and Connie came back up to the room. Armin was trailing behind them, talking to a certain someone who I hadn’t even been thinking about until he walked in.

“Hey, four-eyes, have you already been hitting up Nicole’s stash? She’s keeping that shit in the freezer for a reason.”

My head whipped towards the doorway and my eyes fixated on Levi standing there, wearing tight black jeans, and, just like nearly every other time I had seen him, that same green plaid flannel. I’d never seen him wear the shirt underneath it before. The I recognized the ink splatter crows and realized he was wearing the one  _ I _ had gotten him. As if that weren’t enough, the shark tooth necklace was layered in between the flannel and shirt, resting directly over his heart. I curled my knees into my chest and melted a little inside.

Levi walked into the room and leaned over his colleague, who was currently sprawled out on the bed. “I asked you a question, Hanji,” he said forcefully. 

The HellPN flopped over on her side and tossed back, “I don’t know, have  _ youuuuuuuuu _ ?”

Levi stepped back and sighed. “Christ, I can smell the Jager on your breath from here.” His eyes roved down to the end of the bed, straight to where I was sitting. “Oh. Hey, Jaeger.”

“Does she smell like the vodka Jager, or do you think we’ve been making out?” I immediately felt the need to ask.

“The vodka. Nicole’s keeping it in the freezer in the garage. Among other things,” he quickly explained. He shoved Hanji aside to make room for himself on the bed (not much was required). My spine tingled a little as the mattress behind me dipped under his weight. “Now, if I remember correctly, the last time you were at a party where alcohol was served, you drank yourself into a five-hour coma.”

“It’s not going to happen again,” I declared. “I’m going to be a lot more careful this time. I swear it.”

“Right. I’ll remember you said that when I’m feeding you dixie cups of water and you’re convulsing on the bathroom floor.”

“I-I said...” I started indignantly, but when I noticed the slight smirk on Levi’s face I stopped mid-sentence. I wasn’t going to start an argument with him now.

“How’s your holiday been? You know, since we last talked,” he asked as I was handed a controller and a new race started up.

“Fine,” I replied. “Most of it’s been taken up by either stuff with either my dad and Mikasa or people from the group. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, really. Just less work involved.”

“Hm.”

“How was yours?”

Levi looked at me for a second, seeming disillusioned, as if he couldn’t believe I was asking him such a stupid question. “Well, I’ve been sleeping a lot more than I usually do, which is something.”

I remembered what he had told me on Christmas Eve and knew I shouldn’t pry much more than that. But after only a moment of silence I couldn’t resist. “Did you do anything interesting?”

“I worked,” he said flatly. “It’s always an interesting time, seeing what kinds of medical trouble people can get themselves into. Erwin offered to host an office party for us, too, so I went to that. It was pretty fun, I guess. He invited all his colleagues and the entire nursing squad. You’d be surprised how familial a bunch of doctors can get in the right setting.”

I hummed in agreement. “Erwin does seem like he could be someone’s secondary dad if he needed to be.”

“He definitely can. In fact,” Levi said, leaning in towards me as if he thought the others might be listening, “I think he overpays me a little just because he knows I need the support.”

I laughed a little, and my kart slid off the track and plunged into the abyss. Then the laughing turned into an uproar of rage and a long string of curses directed at the stupid fucking goddamned Rainbow Road of death why the hell did anyone think that this stupid track was a good design. Then everyone else was laughing, and I collapsed backwards onto the bed and Levi pulled me toward the pillows before I could hurt anyone else who was playing the game. 

He laid me down, and I totally could have pulled him with me and stuck my tongue in his mouth right then. I wanted to. But I didn’t. So the party kept progressing.

The whole fiasco was exactly the same as the first Kirschtein party I had been to. People got progressively drunker as the evening wore on, including Hanji, who we tried to keep out of Jean’s room in order to avoid getting molested. Nicole had decided to keep her contraband alcohol (this time an assortment of cheap wines and various brands of rum and vodka) in the spare refrigerator in the garage, and she and Jean were serving as denizens of the booze in order to keep out anyone they deemed too young. But, as many of the YCSG predicted, it didn’t work all that well, and almost everyone was totally hammered within about two hours. I still found the chocolate fountain that Armin had been so excited about (that it turned out Jean  _ actually had _ ) and managed to get a taste of random bite-sized snacks dunked in the flowing melty goodness before people started sticking their nasty drunken tongues into it and holding each other's’ heads under the stream.

While we weren’t watching the others give themselves permanent liver damage, we were waiting around for Reiner to show up. He had replied to the group chat and said he was interested in going, but after the first hour there was still no sign of him. We took turns scouting out the crowded house, waiting at the door, asking whoever was willing to answer if they had seen a massive blonde dude who might have looked a little sleep-deprived, but nothing came up. Still, we didn’t give up until Jean received a text from him at almost nine, which he had to show to the rest of us in order for anyone to believe what it said.

**Reiner: Sorry I can’t go tonight. Im really not feeling up to it right now.**

Reiner wasn’t up to going to a Kirschtein party. It sounded ironic to me, since he was one of the reasons I had started going to these stupid gatherings in the first place. And he had been able to get to the YCSG Christmas party. He had been just fine there. It didn’t make sense that now he suddenly wasn’t able to come to another one. 

I tried to put the thought out of my mind and focused instead on the group that was actually there.

The party gained more and more momentum as the time crawled towards midnight. The drunkenness got louder and rowdier, though the cops still had yet to show up. Jean’s room remained our safe haven for when things outside got too energetic. Still, I wanted to spend as much time as I could in the thick of things. The noise, the drunken screaming and the thundering bass that rumbled in the floorboards of Jean’s living room had just as much value as the safety of his quiet, isolated room, if not more. They were sensational. They reminded me I was alive. So I wanted to feel them, hear them,  _ be there _ with them for as long as I could be.

Someone decided to put Dance Central into the Xbox for the massive living room tv and see how well drunk people could do at choreographed dancing. Then, in another room, someone else put on the Dick Clark New Year’s Eve special in order to avoid missing the countdown to midnight.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Levi started disappearing.

I barely noticed it at first. I figured that he was doing the same thing as the rest of us, venturing out to take part in the epicenter of the party scene, even if it didn’t seem to be in his nature.  _ Everyone needs to have fun once in a while _ , I rationalized.  _ He must be out there somewhere. _

Then, at about eleven, he came back to Jean’s room and this conversation happened.

Levi walked into the room.

I said, “Well, look who finally decided to show up.”

Levi looked at the clock on Jean’s dresser. “Have I really been gone that long?”

I thought I had offended him somehow. “No, not really.”

He walked over to the bed and sat with me, disregarding the three other people in the room. “Good. I don’t want you guys to worry.”

I shifted in place a little. “Really?”

“Really what?” 

“You think we’re going to worry about losing you when we’re all in the same place.”

Levi stared at me for a long time, then got up from the bed and disappeared again. I immediately jumped to the conclusion that I had said something wrong and berated myself for all of the two minutes that it took him to return to Jean’s room.

I thought that something was off about him, but I chalked it all up to being late. Levi might have claimed to be used to being sleep-deprived, but I had no idea what that actually meant to him. Half an hour later, though, it happened again in the living room.

I accidentally pushed Levi up against a wall, the people around me not realizing that I was there, and me not realizing that Levi was in front of me.

He said, “Whoa, there.”

I replied, “Sorry.”

I noticed that he was giving me a sultry look through his lowered eyelashes. Or one that I thought was sultry, but was probably just him being half-asleep.

“Fancy seeing you here, brat. What are you doing down here?” he asked.

“Nothing, really. Just wandering,” I answered.

“And you just happened to wander into me?”

It took me until then that I realized he was speaking about half as fast as he normally did. 

“The crowd kind of shoved me in your direction.”

He laughed. “They must be temperamental or something. It must have taken a lot of shoving to get you this far.”

I was close enough to him to feel the warm brush of his breath against my face. And the smell. It had taken me a while to notice the strange, bitter tang that filled the air when he spoke, but I caught on eventually. It took even longer for me to realize what it meant.

“Levi, are you drunk?” I demanded.

All of a sudden, his face turned pale. His expression fell, and he stared up at me.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I stared back at him for a while, then sighed. “It’s okay.”

“I didn’t mean to do it...”

“I said it’s okay. Just come back to Jean’s room with me. I’ll let you explain there. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said. 

Then I wound my arm around his, he let me keep it there and I pulled him up the stairs and back to the support group’s quiet space. The room was empty when we got there. I sat him down on the bed, and he fell back against the pillows. Unable to resist, I settled down next to him. 

“What happened out there?” I asked gently.

Levi gazed up at the ceiling for a long time before he gave me an answer. “I didn’t think about it,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to think about it.”

“Think about what?”

Levi’s hands went up to his forehead and tangled frantically into his hair. “Anything. I didn’t want to think about anything. I didn’t want to remember... I wanted to stop feeling like...”

He was choking on his words, sounding almost like he was in pain. I cut him off, just to make him stop. “What don’t you want to remember? What’s wrong?”

“I... my dad... fuck...” he mumbled, and then I remembered. His dad had died of alcohol poisoning. That was why. He had told me himself. 

_ Besides, drinking isn’t really my thing. _

“Oh god. Levi...” I murmured worriedly. I tried to pull one of his hands away from his hair, but he brushed it away.

“It was that question. Just... just that stupid question. You asked it, and I started thinking... agh. I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

That stupid question. The one I had asked him. I was just curious. I hadn’t meant anything by it, only wanted to know what he had been up to lately. I hadn’t meant to remind him.

“Levi,  _ I’m _ sorry. You don’t have to be, so stop apologizing.”

My ex-nurse stopped where he was and stared up at me, his eyes wider and more innocent than I had ever seen them. He took a few deep breaths, trying to steady himself and fight the intoxication that was probably clouding his brain. I tried to put my hand near his face again, and this time he let me brush a few wayward strands of hair out of his face. He rolled over onto his side and buried his face into my wrist. “Eren...”

The way he said my name sent an involuntary shiver down my spine. “How many drinks did you have?” I asked cautiously.

“N-not sure,” he said. “A glass of wine... maybe two... then one of these mixed things this girl was handing out...” He drew back from me and stared blankly ahead. “I think that was it.”

“Wow. Your alcohol tolerance is really shit.”

He started laughing then, which I had little to no idea how to handle. “Pfff... shit...” he mumbled blearily before rolling onto his back again. “You’re really funny when I’m sloshed, you know?”

I smiled, an action which was now beyond my control. “Good to know. Think you can make it until midnight?”

“I think so,” he replied drowsily. “I think I’ll be okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

He then miraculously sat up and propped himself up against Jean’s headboard. Armin walked into the room, noticed the two of us sitting on Jean’s bed, smirked and said nothing. A few of the others gathered in the room after him, bringing with them a small wealth of leftover Christmas cookies. Not much later, Mikasa burst into the room with Jean in tow.

“Guys, the ball is about to drop! You need to get out here or you’re going to miss it!” she shouted. I could only guess that she and Jean had somehow made up over the course of the night before the group swept me and my drunk ex-nurse out into the hallway. 

Mikasa’s frantic proclamations turned out to be true. The television in the living room had been changed from the Xbox games to the Dick Clark special, and half the party had gathered around it, some people already counting down, even though there was still more than a minute left. I stood on the balcony of the upper level that looked out over the expanse of the living room, Levi at my side. Connie had somehow gotten a hold of some party poppers and noisemakers, and he made a production of handing one to every single present member of the Youth Cancer Support Group. I stuck the little plastic kazoo-thing I was given into the side of my mouth and wrapped the popper string around my fingers. The countdown was down to thirty seconds. It wouldn’t be much longer until the new year started.

“Hey, Eren,” Levi said quietly.

“Yeah?” I replied.

“Do you have any resolutions this year?”

Twenty seconds left until the new year.

“I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t think of anything that I want to change.”

Ten seconds left. The people in the living room were starting to chant along with the countdown.

“I can think of a few,” Levi said.

I turned to him, eyes wide. “Like what?”

He glanced over at me, and my nerves shivered in response. 

_ Five... Four... Three... Two... One... _

Noise exploded in the living room and rattled the house as the glowing fiber-optic ball hit the end of its run. The entire party was screaming.

“ _ HAPPY NEW YEAR! _ ”

 

* * *

 

The party didn’t last very long after the ball dropped. It climaxed for a little while. The music that steadily thrummed in the background doubled in volume and people screamed and danced around Jean’s living room to ring in the New Year while Jean was gripped by legitimate fears of a police intervention. The chaos only lasted so long, though. Within an hour, everyone’s energy was starting to run out. A decent number of the guests left, and I hoped that nobody would die in a horrible accident on their way home. I didn’t know how much my hoping would do, though, since judging by what Levi had told me the alcohol had been flowing pretty steadily that night. Those who didn’t leave passed out in random places. I wasn’t sure which group would include Hanji and Levi this time around, but I had a decently educated guess.

“Levi!” Hanji called out in the hallway outside of Jean’s room at some time near two in the morning. “Leeeeeviiiii? Where is you?”

“In here,” my ex-nurse grumbled into a pillow he had dragged to the end of Jean’s bed. I sat on the bed next to him, his head next to my feet and his feet about level with my shoulder, silently wishing that he had chosen my face over a sack of polyester fluff.

Hanji stumbled through the door, which was still open for some reason. “Levi, I wanna go home now. I’m tiiiiiired.”

Levi picked his head up and glared at her. “I can’t.”

“What?” Hanji whined. She made her way to the bed and leaned over him. “But I don’t have my car. Or my keys. And everyone is leaving.” I was pretty sure the members of the support group were never meant to see the admins like this.

“Hanji, I’m serious,” Levi deadpanned. “I. Can’t. Drive. You.”

“Why?”

“Levi’s drunk, Hanji,” I explained quickly. The entire group had gathered in Jean’s room again, and I wasn’t sure who knew and who didn’t. “He can’t drive anyone home.”

“Levi... what?” She stared at me with her head cocked, then asked “Levi’s DRUNK?!” a little too loudly for my tastes.

“Y-yes,” I said in a stage whisper, hoping she would somehow get the message. “You’re both gonna have to crash here. You can find a place, right?”

“Nicole and her squad of bitches took up both of the guest rooms,” Jean cut in, not surprisingly, since a host is generally supposed to know what the fuck is happening in their own house. “Hanji can probably find a place to squeeze into. The support group’s going to be in here, so if you want to join us, Levi-”

“I’ll find another place,” Levi said shortly before leaning in towards me to whisper. “Get me to a bathroom. Now.”

No further explanation was needed. I nodded and started for the doorway, Levi close behind. I covertly grabbed the sleeve of his flannel as we left so I could tow him in his slow, drunken state to the bathroom that I had passed out in a few months earlier. It was in a completely different state than it had been at that first party. There were notes written all over the mirror in lipstick, mostly New Year’s wishes and other stupid shit, along with a mess of empty plastic cups and some random girl passed out in the shower stall.

Levi lunged for the toilet as soon as it was within striking distance. In one fast, fluid motion, he threw back the lid, pushed his bangs away from his face and started retching madly into the porcelain bowl. Acid, alcohol and half-digested food spilled out of his mouth so violently that I was scared his convulsions would rip him apart. I wanted to comfort him, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood. I kept my distance until the sounds of splattering vomit started to soften.

“Are you okay?” I asked once he looked like he was able to breathe again. My only answer was the sound of another wave of puke hitting the water. I knelt down behind him and tentatively placed my hand on his back, right above where I remembered his tattoo was. 

Levi coughed and sank towards the ground, still clinging to the rim of the toilet bowl. “Ugh, that was disgusting,” he croaked. His eyes wandered lazily towards me. “I’m sorry you have to see me like this, Eren.”

“I told you to stop apologizing,” I reminded him gently.

“Whatever. Just get me a tissue, or a washcloth, or... someone’s panties, I don’t give a fuck. I just wanna get this nasty shit off my face.”

Luckily I came across a roll of paper towels under the sink before it came down to panties. I ripped a few off, soaked them with cold water and handed them over to Levi. He wiped away whatever traces of vomit might have been there, threw the paper towels in the trash, slammed the toilet lid shut and flushed the evidence. He tried to stagger to his feet, I tried to help him, and he tried to push me away. In the end, I had to hold him steady against the sink and keep his hair out of his eyes while he ran more cold water over his face and through his mouth in an effort to combat the hangover we both knew was coming.

“That was the grossest thing I have ever tasted,” he said once we were finished.

“Think of it this way. It could have been projectile diarrhea.”

Levi snorted, and I swear the smile he gave me right then could have cured me on the spot. 

“Hey, you think Seabiscuit keeps extra toothbrushes in here?” he asked. “I don’t want to let vomit residue destroy my teeth all night.”

“Yeah, let me check.” And, sure enough, he did. “It looks like someone sabotaged the toothpaste, though.”

Levi glanced at the open tube that someone had smashed in their drunken stupor and the thick, crusty puddle of white in front of it and visibly shuddered. “It’s fine. It’s still usable, I think.”

I wasn’t sure if it was because he had just puked his guts out or if Levi always brushed his teeth with the fury of a thousand angry hornets, but that was how he went about things. Once he was done, he cleaned his face off one more time and drained a few Dixie cups’ worth of faucet water before he started towards the door. 

“Where are you going to sleep?” I asked once we were out in the hallway.

“Don’t know,” he replied. “I was thinking I would go downstairs, maybe find a spot on the couch or in the basement. People are passed out all over the fucking place. There are pretty much no boundaries.”

I wanted to agree with him, but the thought of him having to sleep on a table or, god forbid, the  _ floor _ that people had been spilling things on all night made me nervous. Maybe his clean freakishness was starting to rub off on me.

“But what if there isn’t anywhere left?” I said, totally pulling the excuse out of my ass but sure that Levi wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. “There were a lot of people who never went home. It’s probably packed down there.”

Levi stared off into the distance for a second, then sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But where else am I supposed to go?”

“Well, you remember what Jean said.”

“I know, and I said I didn’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“I... I’m not good with sleeping with large groups of people.”

I didn’t think that Levi was up for telling me why. “Right. Okay. Well, there’s... there’s...”

“His parents’ room is still open, right?”

I started at the suggestion. “Levi, are you serious?”

“Why not?” he asked like a confused kindergartener.

“Jean specifically told us that their room was off-limits. No one is allowed in there. He and Nicole can’t have people fucking up their parents’ personal stuff.”

“I’m not gonna touch anything,” Levi declared. “Just the bed.”

“Fine,” I said in surrender. He nodded and turned to stagger off down the hallway. I went back to the bathroom. The passed-out girl changed positions while I brushed my teeth with the same brush Levi had used, and I tried not to think about how I was indirectly making out with him. The lights in the house were starting to go out by the time I got out of the bathroom. I turned to start towards Jean’s room, but I somehow found myself looking over my shoulder, in the opposite direction. Towards the Kirschtein's’ room.

I was feeling just as tired as everyone else at the party, and I wanted to get some sleep as soon as I could. But even more than that, I wanted to know that Levi was okay. I had left him to work things out on his own. I knew he was able to handle it. He was a grown-ass, twenty-one-year-old  man. Who was drunk, and who I also had uncontrollable feelings for. So, against what was probably my better judgement, I went to the master bedroom to check on Levi. 

The Kirschtein’s bedroom was about twice the size that any rational bedroom should be. The thing could have been a house all on its own. The only thing missing was a kitchen. There was a floor-to-ceiling wardrobe, a set of chairs with a small table in front of a bookcase loaded with medical crap I couldn’t be bothered to try and name, a door to a private bathroom, a sliding glass door to a  _ fucking second-floor balcony _ , and a little alcove that led to two more walk-in closets. At the other end of the room, an unreasonably large bed was situated between two expensive-looking nightstands. There was a small lump of a person lying on top of it. He hadn’t even bothered with using the covers.

I made my way over to the bed. Levi sprawled on his back, the entire upper half of his body sinking into the massive pile of unnecessary throw pillows by the headboard. His eyes were closed, his face blank and peaceful.

“Levi?” I whispered cautiously. My only answer was the soft, breezy rhythm of his breathing. I knew he was probably sleeping, but for some reason, I still felt the need to make sure he would be okay for the rest of the night. 

I lowered myself down onto the edge of the bed and put my hand on his shoulder. “Levi, are you awake?” I whispered again. Still, no response. He was definitely asleep.

I could have left him then. And, logically, I should have. But I didn’t. Instead I found myself sitting there for I don’t even remember how long, feeling absolutely fascinated by him. I was transfixed by every flutter of his eyelids, every strand of hair scattered across his forehead, the gentle rise and fall of his chest. I went down on my elbow to get a closer look. Levi didn’t seem to care that I was sitting there and observing him like a creep. He just went right on sleeping.

I reached out to him and gently brushed a wayward strand of his bangs away from his face. Then, in the biggest lapse of judgement I’d had thus far, I was leaning in. It was like the first party, when we’d been outside, and he was sitting next to me, and I had first seen the true colors in his eyes. But this time, I wasn’t drunk. This time I knew what I was doing. I knew exactly how bad an idea it was. And I did it all the same.

I carefully lowered myself next to Levi on the mattress and braced my arm above his shoulder so my face hovered above his. I tilted my head to the side. My lips brushed his.  _ Just a little lower... just a little...  _

“Eren?”

I barely heard the soft, sleepy murmur. I might not have even noticed it if I hadn’t felt his lips moving against mine and his breath on my skin. I gasped and jerked away from him, startled, waiting for him to sit up and slap me in the face for whatever the hell it was that I had just tried to do. 

But nothing happened.

Levi looked up at me with his eyes half-closed. He seemed a little bewildered, if anything, but nothing else. I shifted uneasily on the mattress. “Yeah, it’s me,” I said.

Levi never said anything to respond. Instead, he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me down towards him. I collapsed on top of him, and before I knew it one of his arms was around my ribcage and my head was resting on his chest. 

“L-Levi?” I whispered in surprise, but I never got an answer. His breathing had evened out again, and he wasn’t responding. He was fast asleep.

I thought about untangling myself from him and going back to Jean’s room. I seriously did. But it didn’t last long. It quickly got replaced by  _ Holy shit, he’s touching me. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitasdfghjkllmfnirmjkoongjnk. _

I quickly got lost in the gentle warmth radiating from Levi’s body, the rise and fall of his breath and the soft, distant beat of his heart. I could hear it just below where my head landed. It was a strong, steady sound, and there was something undeniably comforting in it. It sounded like him. I felt my own pulse speeding up, my heart palpitating as it tried to match with his. 

I took a deep, calming breath and draped an arm across his waist. It didn’t seem like I would be leaving anytime soon. And, no surprise, I didn’t want to.

I closed my eyes and fell asleep to the sound of Levi’s heart beating beside mine.

 

* * *

 

When I woke up on New Year’s Day, I was in a daze. I was lying on my side in some insanely soft, comfortable bed, but I couldn’t remember where I was. Too much had happened the night before, and I was feeling too hazy to remember it and get out of bed at the same time. I could only choose one or the other. So I stayed down and stared straight ahead while I tried to collect my bearings.

Nothing would come back to me as I was lying there. I did notice, however, that the room I was in was very well-decorated. Whoever owned it must have hired a professional or something. It must have cost a fortune to...

_ Fuck, I’m in Jean’s parents’ room. _

With that one detail everything came rushing back to me. The party last night. Levi was drunk. Midnight had passed, I saw him throw up, I tried and failed to kiss him, and we had both passed out in here.

Something warm was pressed against my back. There was an arm around my waist.

I rolled over, more roughly than someone who feared that another person was sleeping beside them should have, and came face to face with Levi. I gasped, then choked on the sudden inhale. If I made too much noise, I might wake him up. Not sure what else to do, I stopped and waited for something more to happen. 

I stared at him for what felt like hours. The whole time, his eyes stayed closed, his breathing steady, his arm wound loosely around me. Once I had convinced myself that he wouldn’t spring to attention if I moved again, I carefully untangled myself from him. I separated from him and moved cautiously away from the bed, and Levi rolled limply onto his back, apparently too knocked out by his hangover to wake up and bitch me out. It wasn’t until then that I suddenly worried about having had another sexy dream while he was sleeping next to me, or, even worse, having stabbed him with my morning wood while I was asleep. A quick look down assured me that nothing of the sort had happened. I breathed a sigh of relief and left the room as quietly as I could.

It was around nine in the morning, and a few people were wandering around the house already. I was one of them. I made my way through party shrapnel and people passed out in random places to the kitchen. The smell of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls was drifting delicately through the lower level of the house. I walked in to see that Jean had somehow managed to isolate the area of any wayward guests. He was at the stove with Marco, delegating cinnamon rolls to Mikasa, Sasha and Armin. 

“Morning,” I mumbled. 

Mikasa was the first one to respond to me. “Happy New Year, Eren.”

“Annie and Connie aren’t up yet?”

“No,” Armin replied. “Annie tends to sleep a lot as it is, and Connie was dicking around until almost four AM. It was annoying.” He sighed and took a sip of hot cocoa.

I traveled over to the stove. “Thanks for breakfast. How are you keeping the others out of here?”

“Nicole knows that she screwed up with the alcohol again,” Marco answered after Jean deliberately ignored me. He handed me a cinnamon roll on a leftover paper plate. “This is how she’s paying Jean back for whatever damage was done to the Trost High crowd.”

I hummed thoughtfully, then went back to the counter and ate my cinnamon roll in silence. 

“Where were you last night?” Armin asked when I had come back from getting my second roll.

“Huh?”

“You never came back to Jean’s room. Where did you go?”

“Oh. That.” A flush of heat traveled up the back of my neck as I took a bite of cinnamon roll. “It’s... kind of a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere for a while, Eren.”

I glanced over to the stove to make sure that Mikasa had been completely distracted by her conversation with Sasha, took a deep breath and said, “Levi was drunk last night, and I slept with him.” Armin’s eyes turned into blue frisbees, and I quickly corrected myself. “I-I mean... I didn’t  _ sleep with  _ him, I just slept in the same room as him. He got drunk, so he couldn’t take Hanji home. And you know that the house was running out of space, with people blacking out left and right, so I told him to go to Jean’s parents’ room-”

“But that room is  _ always  _ off-limits!”

“I know, but it was better him than some other wasted moron! He went to sleep in there, and I was worried about him, so I went to check on him, and he kind of... grabbed me in his sleep and pulled me down next to him. So I stayed.” 

Armin exhaled slowly and raised his eyebrows. “I’m just glad that you two are getting somewhere,” he said. “I mean, you’re  _ sleeping together _ already.” He grinned wickedly at me.

“We are not getting anywhere, and we don’t plan to,” I shot back. “And if that’s the way you’re going to put it, then you basically slept with Annie.”

Armin’s cheeks blushed at that, and he stuck a cinnamon roll in his mouth to shut himself up.

The rest of the morning was awkward, to say the least. The rest of the YCSG wandered in over the next hour. Hanji was the last to arrive, and Levi came in not long before her. He staggered into the kitchen and sat down at one of the barstools without speaking to a single one of us.

“Morning, Levi. You alright?” I asked tentatively. 

“I’m fine,” he replied. “I just need a glass of water. Maybe some black coffee.”

Hanji stumbled in almost immediately after him and collapsed onto Levi’s back, obviously in the throes of one serious hangover. Jean quickly dug up a bottle of Tylenol and Marco gave Hanji a dose, along with the same water and coffee that Levi had been served. I glanced back at my ex-nurse from time to time, still just as worried as I had been the night before. He was nowhere near as bad as Hanji was, but I could still tell he was in pain. He never said anything about it, though. He just finished draining the two cups he had asked for, then got up to leave. I stopped him by the door.

“Levi, do you... do you remember anything about last night?” I asked.

“What part?” he deadpanned. “Trying to drink my feelings? Showing everyone what a fucking lightweight I am? Puking my guts out?”

“N-no, um...” I stammered.  _ He doesn’t remember _ , I thought, disappointed. But, a second later, I thought it over again. 

_ It’s probably better this way.  _

“Was there something you wanted to tell me?”

I shuddered. Levi was still standing there. Hanji was already in his car, and he was staring expectantly at me, waiting for me to say something more.

“No,” I murmured finally. “Happy New Year, Levi.”

He smiled slightly, and a laugh slipped out of him. “Happy New Year to you, too, brat.” He pulled me in for a hug, and I did my best to push the memory of last night to the back of my mind.

“Drive safe,” I said softly as he closed the door.

 

* * *

 

Armin’s grandpa came to pick us up at noon, right on schedule. It was late enough for everyone to be awake and functional enough to see us off, but early enough for us to get out of cleanup. My dad was home when we got back, and the rest of the day was spent talking about everything that had happened. However, as most party stories go, there wasn’t much to tell when we left out the parts that involved alcohol. 

The storytelling session didn’t last long, so eventually it dissolved into us going our separate ways in the house. I fell asleep early because, as usual, activity of any kind had left me exhausted. That led to my waking up early, since that was what normally happened when my sleep schedule finally balanced itself out.

It wasn’t even eight in the morning when Armin called me. 

I knew that he, out of all of our friends, was the most likely to get up at some ungodly time of the morning. He was never one to waste daylight. But expecting anyone other than himself to be up at that time of day was definitely a new low for him.

Still, I picked up the phone when I saw his face light up on the screen. “Armin, why the hell are you awake?”

“Eren,” he said. He sounded breathless. Something was wrong.

“What is it?” I asked, my heart in my throat.

“Is Mikasa with you? Are you on speakerphone?”

“No, why are you asking?”

“Because this is important. Really important. She needs to hear it, and I don’t want to have to make this phone call to her, too. I don’t want to have to say this twice.”

“Then I’ll tell her,” I promised. Worry was creeping into my thoughts. “What is it.”

“Reiner just called me last night.” A pause. Armin’s breath shaking. “His melanoma has started spreading again. It’s in his lymphatic system now.”

His words slammed into me like the front car of a train. “What?” I choked out, even though I had understood him the first time, even though his words were echoing over and over in my head. 

“He’s dying, Eren.”

Armin’s voice was so weak. My throat felt like sandpaper. I couldn’t speak, even if I wanted to.

“Are you still there?”

I hung up. I didn’t want to hear any more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was probably the biggest emotional rollercoaster I've managed to put together in a single chapter.  
> I think I owe everyone an apology. But it's 3:13 in the morning. If Santa were delivering any presents, he's probably already come and gone by now. I'm barely able to type anymore. So I should probably sleep before I give myself a migraine.  
> Merry Holidays.   
> See you next chapter.


	20. And The Snowball Effect Proceeds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, hello.  
> I have spent the past 24 hours being gradually buried in snow. I have not set foot outside of the house today, which probably isn't all that tragic on its own, being that I am also deathly ill with a sinus infection.  
> What better condition could I be in to post my first new chapter of 2016?  
> I really don't have much to add to this particular author's note. I have been pretty busy lately, although not with anything enjoyable, and for some time I have been feeling unwaveringly, pathetically tired at all times. But posting a fanfiction update doesn't take that much physical exertion, so why would I do anything else?  
> Speaking of updates, they have been approaching a lot faster than I previously expected. I only have one more chapter (the Valentine's Day update) before I'll be out of material. I'm not sure how I'll proceed from this point onward. Recently I've had weeks-long gaps between sessions of any actual work on this story, probably because I've just been generally feeling kind of shitty. It'll be over soon, hopefully. And from then on, I'll actually be able to get something finished out here for you losers to read.  
> If you don't absolutely hate me, you should consider following my tumblr blog, the-angstiest-author. Apparently it's so unpopular that it doesn't show up when people search for it. So... good luck. Additionally, if you ever want to shitpost about this story, or if you've made fan art or a ficlet or done basically anything related to The Monsters Inside Us, post that shit on tumblr with the tag "fic: tmiu" or "fic: the monsters inside us." I haven't seen anything new in either tag in months, so......... help?  
> All I'm really doing is complaining at this point. I need to be stopped.  
> Story time.

 

 

The most outstanding feature of the Youth Cancer Support Group was the fact that the members of the Youth Cancer Support Group were all that the Youth Cancer Support Group had. The group wasn’t funded by anything. It had no affiliations. It was literally nothing more than bunch of kids who were suffering from a disease and needed friends to help them through it, plus a couple of slightly-older mentors who were just as dedicated as the kids were. The members were all that held the Youth Cancer Support Group together.

If anyone had thought that losing Bertolt was the worst thing that could happen to the group, then Reiner was going to bring them to an entirely new level.

Reiner Braun was, without a doubt, one of the most vital people in the Youth Cancer Support Group. He had been an active part of the group since its beginning. He was always the first one that welcomed new members. He was supportive, even when angsty morons like me tried to refuse any help that was offered to them. He was the glue that kept us together. He was the anchor that everyone else had chained themselves to. Reiner Braun was the big brother of the entire support group. Then Armin had called, and immediately all I could see was the inevitability of everything falling apart.

That didn’t stop the group from switching the location of the next meeting on short notice. It was now going to be held at Reiner’s house. The news had made me feel sick when I had first heard it. Either the others hadn’t reacted the same way, or they had a much better way of handling the shock than I did.

My dad was back at work, so on January fifth, Mikasa and I carpooled with Armin to go to the next meeting. When we walked in, his house didn’t seem any different from the last time we had been there. Low-level conversational noise filled the house, and the faint smell of Greta Braun’s nachos was drifting out of the kitchen. The group had gathered in Reiner’s living room, and everyone was talking over one another.

I picked out Reiner right away. He didn’t seem very much different than the last time I had seen him. He was standing, leaned against the side of the couch, talking excitedly with Jean and Connie while Annie sat nearby and typed an addition to the conversation whenever she could.

“Hey, Reiner!” Armin shouted across the room.

Reiner turned toward us and a bright smile lit up on his face. “Armin! Get over here, buddy!”

My best friend did just that, and Reiner crushed his tiny frame in a hug. He didn’t seem ready to collapse anytime soon, so I followed Armin and let Reiner immediately pull me into yet another hug. He still made me worry that I wouldn’t get out of it with my rib cage intact, so I figured that he still had a decent amount of life left in him.

“It’s been a while, Eren. How’ve you been?” Reiner jovially asked.

“I’ve been fine,” I replied. “I heard about what happened, though,” I hesitantly added.

Reiner paused, glanced at the others around him and sighed. “Oh. That. Right.”

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to dredge it up,” I stammered, immediately regretting having brought it up at all. “I mean... I just wanted to say...”

_Don’t say “I’m sorry,” Eren. Do not say it._

“That sucks. That’s awful.”

“Well, not much anyone can do about it now,” Reiner said, a little more dismissively than I was expecting. “It’s just a risk factor. Nothing’s happened yet. At least nothing that anyone’s been able to find.”

“Oh. That’s a relief, I guess.” I paused, still feeling tense. “I just wanted to let you know that I knew... about the thing... something like that.”

He laughed it off.“Don’t worry about it, Eren.”

The support group circled up, and the meeting began. But before anyone could bring anything up, Reiner cut in with an announcement that I already knew was coming. He probably figured that he should get it over with quickly. And honestly, I agreed with him.

“Hey, guys,” he began, and a tense silence settled over the rest of the support group. “Now, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard the basics of what’s been going on with me from someone or other. I just want to clear a few things up before we go anywhere else with this meeting.” He stopped to breathe for a second. “First of all, the actual diagnosis. As far as I know, my melanoma hasn’t reached anything vital. The thing that’s gotten everyone concerned was that it’s rooted itself deeply enough to reach my lymphatic system in a few spots. This means I’m at a higher risk for the cells going somewhere they shouldn’t, but it hasn’t happened yet. Second of all, I’m going to start radiation treatment this week. My doctor is going to be doing everything she can to get rid of this before it turns into something more serious. If we can stop the spreading at this stage, great.”

He never went into the _if not_ of that statement, and no one needed to ask why.

“So, just to keep everything in perspective, you guys don’t have to worry about me. I’m still fine. I know you guys will be, too.”

Reiner ended the discussion with that and sat back down, a smile on his face. The meeting went on normally, and nothing else important came up. People finally felt comfortable enough to acknowledge the fact that _yes, Bertolt is dead and there is nothing we can do about it_. As soon as one person ripped the band-aid off and said it, everyone else came gushing out after them. Marco spilled his guts first, then Jean, Armin, Connie and Sasha. Annie tapped on her phone the whole time. I watched her intermittently, not sure if she was making her statement as she went or ignoring the group while they broke down the walls that held back their pain and misery. Then she handed her phone to Armin, and I had my answer.

“You want me to read this?” my friend asked hesitantly, and she nodded. He looked down at the screen, took a nervous breath and started. “While I’m sitting here and listening to you talk about Bertolt, it makes me regret getting my vocal cords removed more than I ever have before. I want to say something in my own words, to let everyone know that the words came from me and that I have the courage to say them to the group. I don’t want you to think that I need people to speak for me-” Armin put the phone down and glanced at her. “Annie, we know that it’s really you talking. You don’t have to say the words yourself for them to be yours.” Annie only sighed in response and nudged my friend’s arm, urging him to keep going.

“Okay, okay.” Armin surrendered and turned back to the phone. “Bertolt was my best friend. He was like the brother that I never had. He meant more to me than most people in my life ever have. I loved him a lot. And Reiner, I know I didn’t love him the same way you did, but...” He had to stop for a moment to steady himself. “...but I did love him, and I probably always will. When you called me and told me the news, I felt like a piece of me had been ripped out. I had to wake my dad up in the middle of the night to drive me to your house just so I wouldn’t have to be alone. I still have to thank him for that.” Armin laughed a little at that, but it didn’t hide the waver in his voice. “This group won’t be the same without Bertolt. The people in it won’t be the same. _Nothing_ will be. But we won’t forget him. I won’t let it happen, and I know that you won’t either. Even when I spend my last year here and I’m too old to sign up again, I know you’ll tell all those stupid newbies exactly how great Bertolt Hoover was. Make sure they remember, because I sure as hell won’t forget.”

Armin dropped Annie’s phone on the couch and turned to where she sat next to him. She was receding into herself, her knees pulled up to her chest and her hands over her mouth. She was trying to hide it, but there were tears glistening in the corners of her eyes.

“Oh, Annie...” Armin said softly. She sniffed weakly, and he wound his arms around her and pulled her close to him. She buried her sharp nose into his shoulder, and Reiner scooted over on the couch to join in. He moved the smallest member of the blonde squad into the spot between him and Armin so they could both equally participate in comforting her. Armin looked up at the rest of the group and said, “Can someone please say something? I don’t want to leave thr group hanging like this.”

“Well, I-” Marco started, and the entire group turned their attention on him. He faltered a little, but managed to say, “I’m really glad you were so open with us, Annie.”

“I know you don’t think so, but you have a voice here,” Mikasa added.

I wanted so badly to say something hilarious, like _Actually, you don’t,_ but right in the middle of a conversation about a dead friend is a horrible time to be a dick.

The meeting went on for another half hour after that. After Bertolt came up, no one seemed able to talk about anything else. So Armin called his grandpa, he came to pick us up, and that was the end of it. The ride home was silent, and I went straight for my room when we got home.

My dad didn’t get home until late that night. By the time he did, I had already fallen asleep.

 

* * *

 

January passed pretty slowly, as far as months are concerned.

There were the support group meetings almost twice a week. More had been added to the schedule for whatever reason, and not everyone could make every single one. I had very few excuses, so I went to almost all of them. But, of the few excuses I did have, one was that my family only had one car and my dad was using it most of the time, so there were a few I couldn’t make. One that didn’t fall into the niche was at Armin’s at five on the eighteenth. Grandpa Arlert said he would gladly give me a ride in the Arlert Accord after he had brought Armin home from his classes at Rose, so at that particular time I had no excuses.

It was another meeting that Reiner happened to be at. He hadn’t been able to make it to many of the other suddenly-existent meetings so far. There was always some explanation that Hanji would give to the group before the circle of therapy started its round of conversation. He had radiation that day, he was sick from radiation the day before, sometimes he just wasn’t feeling up to it, whatever. But he was never straightforwardly _not there_. There was always an explanation.

He hadn’t given one this time, and there he was in Armin’s living room, collapsed on the couch with Annie perched on the arm next to him and listening to him talk.

I hadn’t seen Reiner for a solid week before that day. Before that, I wasn’t even sure how long the interval had been. I knew what was going on with him, and I should have expected that he was going to look... _different_ . That didn’t change the shock that rattled me when I finally saw how _different_ he would be.

The muscle mass that he had been sporting not even a month earlier was about seventy-five percent of what it used to be. Obviously he wouldn’t be as active as he once was. If his treatments were getting him sick, he definitely wouldn’t be able to stay in impeccable shape anymore. He skin seemed a little papery, his face paler and the faintest of shadows swept under his eyes. But when I walked in and he turned to look at me, all of the damage disappeared behind his wide, blinding grin and his booming voice when he shouted, “Hey, Eren!” at me from across the room.

As I should have guessed, Reiner’s personality was fucking indestructible.

I took stock of the attendance at the meeting. Levi was missing, as he had usually been ever since the number of meetings was increased. I sent a text to him just as we gathered into the habitual circle and started tossing our problems back and forth.

**Me: hey Levi, where have you been? the YCSG misses you :(**

The meeting went by as most of them did. Nothing special, no jarring realizations or dredging up of tragic backstories. Everyone left after two hours, when people (namely Sasha) started getting hungry and remembered that Armin’s grandpa wasn’t providing dinner for an entire cancer-fighting army. It wasn’t until then that I checked my phone. While I had been ignoring it, Levi had texted me back.

**Levi: Classes ran late today, and I have a lab report due tomorrow. Sorry.**

**Levi: and look who’s talking, brat.**

I smiled at my phone when I read it and sincerely hoped that no one saw.

Armin and I had already planned on my spending the night at his place, so Grandpa Arlert ordered some Chinese food for us while we Armin started up his computer and looked for a free anime site that wasn’t plastered with ads so he could introduce me to a few of the series that Annie had recommended and that he himself had taken a liking to. We stayed up as late as we could, but cancer twinks can only go so far before they start to break down. So, after twelve episodes of _Steins Gate_ and Armin having to skip back a few seconds because one of us had blacked out a little, we decided to call it quits.

However, once the laptop was off, we were wide awake again. We were lying on Armin’s bed in a puppy pile of blankets for some indeterminate length of time before I finally asked, “Hey, Armin, are you awake?”

“Yeah,” was his soft reply.

“Can’t sleep?”

“Not anymore.”

“I thought I would pass out once we turned your laptop off.”

“So did I.”

“Should we try to keep going?”

“No. It’s not worth it.”

I shifted around to find his face. “What are you thinking about?”

“Not much,” he replied, and we both knew it wasn’t true. “A lot,” he corrected himself. Then, “Reiner. And Annie.”

“Well if you’re thinking of Annie, try not to get a boner.”

Armin then grabbed a pillow and smacked me across the face with it. It hurt about as much as getting flicked by a rabbit’s ear. “Ow,” I said sarcastically. “But seriously, what are you thinking about?”

“I told you already,” he went on, leaning against the pillow he had hit me with. “It’s just gotten so complicated. And... so much worse than I feel like it should have been. You know how that is, right?”

I nodded. “It’s just not fair. I mean, Reiner just lost someone he loved, and now he’s going downhill too. It’s not right. That kind of thing shouldn’t happen.”

“I know. But it does, and there isn’t anything we can do about it.”

I stared at his face in the dark for a while before I asked, “Have you been talking to him?”

“Yeah. Annie and I...” he started, and if it weren’t so dark in his room I might have caught him blushing a little. “We’ve been visiting him as much as we can. Even the way he is, he needs to see people. He’s an extrovert, so he doesn’t do well with being alone for too long.”

The room was quiet for a bit. I shifted around in the blankets and waited for him to continue. Armin was a little slow taking the hint. “What, do you want to tell you the medical stuff now?” he finally asked, sounding exasperated.

“I don’t know. I just want details. You know I’m not good at finding things out for myself.”

“I’m not sure if you know what you’re asking for.”

“I don’t,” I said shortly. “And that’s why I want you to tell me.”

Armin sighed and rolled over to stare at the ceiling. “I talked to his parents once when I was at his house, and I asked them about what was going on. They told me that his doctor was baffled by everything that happened. Reiner’s cancer hasn’t been active for years. Even before he joined the support group, his cancer’s cell division had slowed so much that it had basically stopped. So they put him on a bimonthly medication to keep the cells in check, and for years now he’s seemed totally healthy. But now...”

“But now?” I coaxed.

“She doesn’t know,” Armin replied. “Everyone thinks it has something to do with his emotional state. He and Bertolt were together for years. He was a part of their family, and they loved each other _so much_. When he died, Reiner must have... his body must have just given up.”

“Is that really possible?” It didn’t make very much sense to me. Someone’s immune system couldn’t stop working just because they were sad. If that were true, I should have died years ago. The entire reason I was still alive was because my body wasn’t ready to die yet, no matter how much my mind was. If that was my case, I couldn’t understand why Reiner’s was any different.

“Well, mental health does have a huge impact on the physical,” my best friend explained. “People can get physically sick from anxiety or depression. And you know how he took Bertolt’s death.”

“But he didn’t seem any different at the meeting today.”

“That’s because how he deals with these things. He relies on other people, and that’s the way he acts around them.”

I curled up in the blankets and looked towards my feet. “He seemed so happy, though.”

“He did, but I don’t know how deep it goes,” Armin murmured. “If losing Bertolt hit him hard enough for his cancer to come back, then there’s no way...”

He trailed off, and the two of us were enveloped by silence for a while longer. I snuggled myself deeper into the blankets and found Armin’s leg in the warm, fluffy chaos. I nudged him with my foot, and he rolled over to look at me.

“We’re trying to fall asleep. Why are we thinking about this right now?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I just wanted to know more about what was happening.”

Armin hid his nose in the blankets and closed his eyes. “Pain demands to be felt,” he whispered.

Neither of us had anything else to say, so, eventually, we fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

January slowly became the month that everyone but me was busy.

I used to be weirdly proficient at keeping myself entertained. It only made sense, since I was alone at pretty much all times. Then I joined the Youth Cancer Support Group, and my skills were completely fucked over.

Only days after Armin left my house the afternoon after he stayed the night, I was starting to get bored. My homeschool could only take up so much of my time when I had literally nothing else to do. I was getting bored a lot faster than I used to. And believe me, I noticed. It was concerning at first. Then, once it sank in, I realized that this was probably how normal people felt most of the time.

As soon as I came to the conclusion, I decided to text Levi.

It was gone ten at night, and the house was quiet. It was in the middle of the absolute lull between when Mikasa gave up waiting for my dad to come home and when my dad actually came home. I was in my room, my door closed and no lights on but my bedside lamp, but I was feeling way too restless to sleep. My phone was balanced between my hands, hovering above my chest. My pulse picked up a little as I started typing.

**Me: hey. are you awake?**

As soon as I hit _send_ , I thought about how dumb that sounded. Of course he was awake. He had told me about his college-based sleep deprivation too many times for me to forget. I stared at the screen until it went dark. This was stupid. I should have texted someone else.

Then my phone vibrated and I frantically unlocked it to see if he had replied.

**New Message from: Levi**

**Yes.**

I felt a little jolt of excitement at the fact that he had responded to me. It quickly wore off when I realized that I had absolutely nothing to talk about. I sighed in frustration, stared at my screen for a full minute, then typed in the first thing that I could pull out of my ass.

**Me: what are you doing?**

It was so mind-numbingly basic, but it was something.

**Levi: Studying. Not sleeping. You?**

**Me: texting you. Going to sleep soon, but not really feeling it yet.**

**Levi: lucky brat**

I cringed a little at the reply. I hadn’t meant to rub my free time in his face.

**Me: whoa sorry i didn’t mean to show off**

**Me: i really don’t have much else to do. it’s boring here.**

**Levi: Good to know.**

His replies seemed a little short.

**Me: am I distracting you from something?**

**Levi: Not really. I was getting kind of sick of this shit anyway. I havent taken a break in hours.**

**Me: okay then take a break. get a snack. take a shit. do something else.**

**Levi: Ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff**

**Levi: Wow real creative**

**Me: thanks i did my best**

My phone was inactive for a minute. I wondered whether or not he was still paying attention to his, which quickly escalated into whether or not he wanted to talk to me at all. Just to make sure he was still there, I sent him another message.

**Me: are you taking a break?**

**Levi: Yes yes jesus christ. I was just in the kitchen.**

**Levi: Calm your shit down**

I smirked at the screen.

**Me: what were you doing?**

**Levi: Making a cup of noodles.**

**Levi: Do you want to install a surveillance system in my house?**

**Me: what**

**Me: no. I just have literally nothing better to talk about**

There was another blank space in between my text and his reply.

**Levi: Then why did you text me?**

I stared at the screen, reading his message over and over again. I didn’t know how to respond. It was late. I was bored. I was lonely. There was nothing else to it. Levi definitely wouldn’t take it as a valid response, but I wasn’t feeling up to making up a bullshit reason that sounded more legitimate than the truth.

**Me: no reason really.**

**Levi: You were just thinking of me**

**Levi: Is that it?**

My face started to burn.

**Me: maybe**

**Levi: Heh. Well thanks. It’s nice to know someone does.**

**Me: ????????**

**Me: come on Im sure other people think of you**

**Levi: I didn’t mean it like that**

**Levi: It’s just nice knowing that.**

**Levi: You understand right?**

I couldn’t help laughing a little at the message he’d left in the little speech bubbles on my screen. I couldn’t believe it. For the first time since we had met, Levi Ackerman had done something awkward.

**Me: yeah. I totally do.**

**Me: and youre right, it is nice**

**Levi: What have you been up to lately?**

**Levi: Classes and work have been death, so I need to know what’s going on with the ycsg**

**Me: I have done nothing. what else is new**

**Me: the ycsg is pretty much the same**

**Levi: Is Reiner okay?**

had to put my phone down as soon as my eyes graced the text. His question ran through my head. Was Reiner okay? I hadn’t seen him in days. He was still talking to Armin and Annie, as far as I knew. Probably Marco, maybe Krista if he had kept her contact in his phone. He had people to turn to. Emotionally, he was probably stable at least. But physically, I had no idea. The last time I had seen him, he’d still been able to hold on the boisterous energy that all of us knew so well. It had to be a good sign of some kind.

**Me: idk how he is now, but he was fine the last time i saw him.**

It was another minute before Levi’s reply came in.

**Levi: Fine how?**

**Me: he still has energy and acts like himself**

**Me: i mean that has to count for something**

**Levi: It does. Ive just been gone so long**

**Levi: What about you?**

I paused before typing my response in.

**Me: what about me**

**Levi: Are you okay?**

For a second, my brain felt scrambled as I stared at my phone. All things considered, I wasn’t okay. There were a lot of things that could have been better than they were. But what was I supposed to tell him? _I’ve been by myself for literally four days and I’ve already started to have separation anxiety_?

**Me: relatively.**

**Levi: What’s wrong?**

My heart seized up as I stared at my phone. He couldn’t have known. There was no way that he had known. He couldn’t have been able to tell that much from a text. It was one word. One word. _How the hell had he known?_

**Me: nothing. why u ask?**

**Levi: Seriously brat.**

**Me: im kinda bored, i guess. maybe a little lonely. its been a few days since i last did anything interesting.**

I didn’t think it would concern him all that much. Boredom isn’t that bad of a problem to have. Loneliness could be, but there was another support group meeting coming up in a few days. It wouldn’t last.

**Levi: I can get out of Trost early on Saturday.**

It was all I could do not to scream like an aroused schoolgirl. I was still processing his words while my trembling fingers tried to put together a coherent response.

**Me: what time**

**Levi: About four or five. I’ll talk to Erwin about it. You might need another one on one.**

**Me: okay**

**Me: i need to ask my dad about it but okay**

**Levi: Let me know what his answer is. I should get back to work.**

At that moment, I conveniently heard the front door swing open and my dad walk in. I typed in one last message.

**Me: okay**

Then I ventured out of my room to find my dad. He was in the kitchen, standing at the sink with the kettle sitting under the faucet. “Hi, Dad.”

He started at the sound of my voice and whirled around to see me standing in the kitchen doorway. “Eren!” he said. “You scared me. I didn’t know you were still up.”

“I’m not really tired yet,” I mused, wandering over to him. “What are you doing?”

“Just making tea. It helps me calm down after work so I can get to sleep easier.”

“Oh.” I probably could have guessed that much from the word _Sleepytime_ in a small yellow banner and the picture of a cozy-looking personified bear on the box that sat next to the stove. My intended purpose of asking him about Levi nattered at the back of my mind, but my resolve wasn’t up to carrying it out yet. “Could I make a cup too?”

“Sure. Just get another mug.”

I did as he said, and the two of us stood around waiting for the water to boil. I asked him how his day was, and he eagerly went on for several minutes about the current experiment in the lab and how the latest staph cultures were still thriving, after a few generations ago they had been killed off pretty expediently by a cocktail of toxins they had exposed to them. The kettle started rumbling in the middle of all of it, so my dad shut the burner off and poured out equal amounts of water into the mugs that were waiting on the counter.

“I’ve gone on long enough about my day,” he said all of a sudden. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been fine,” I replied flatly. “Homeschool is okay. Nothing out of the ordinary.” I tried to take a sip from my tea and promptly burned myself because I wasn’t patient enough for it to cool.

My dad, on the other hand, had actually been successful in drinking his tea. He looked up at me from the edge of the mug, his glasses foggy from the steam. “Something you want to talk about, Eren?”

I tensed up for a second, not sure how to word the question. “Well, I... I’ve been kind of stuck at home for a few days,” I started. The rest of the words all spilled out on their own. “And most of the people from support group have been busy lately. The next meeting isn’t until Sunday, and I’ve been kind of- actually, I’ve been really bored. Way more bored than I used to get. So I was texting Levi, and he wants to come over on Saturday.”

I shut my mouth once I had gotten the point across. My dad was staring at me. There was a questioning look on his face, and his fingers had tightened ever so slightly on his mug. “What does he want to come over for?” he asked cautiously.

“He wants to have a one-on-one therapy session. The group does that for people who need extra help when something serious happens.”

He sipped his tea for a moment, thinking it over. “Is this about Reiner?”

“Yeah,” I said, although I wasn’t actually sure at all. I couldn’t tell what Levi was thinking on the other side of a cell phone screen. “Mikasa’s probably already told you that I’m kind of a special case in the group.”

“She hasn’t told me much, but she’s mentioned it here and there,” he confirmed. “How do these sessions normally work?”

“They’re pretty casual. One of the admins visits a group member, they talk about whatever problems are going on and fix them up in whatever way they can.”

“Has he ever done this before?”

“Yes,” I quickly replied. Our session in October immediately came to mind. “Once.”

The kitchen was quiet for a while longer, and I managed to drink a bit of tea before my dad asked, “What exactly did you text to him when he recommended the... one-on-one session?”

I cringed internally. The way he said it, one-on-one sounded like some kind of euphemism. “I just said hi, first of all. I didn’t think he would answer, but he did, so we started talking and it somehow just came up.”

“Did you say that you were having a problem coping with it?”

“No. He just asked how I was doing, and I told him the truth.”

My dad’s gaze sharpened with suspicion. “Which is?”

“I’ve been feeling a little out of it lately,” I admitted, my palms turning cold. “Been stuck in the house. Kind of bored. Kind of lonely.”

“And he took that as an invitation to come over?”

“No, Dad, it’s not like that.”

“But you couldn’t have asked anyone else?”

“I told you already. I’ve tried. They’re all busy already.”

My dad sighed and carded the fingers of one hand into his hair, pulling a few strands loose from the rubber band that held them back. “Eren, I... listen, I’m not sure how to put this without sounding like a bigot.”

“Whatever you need to say, you can just say it,” I stated. I put my tea down on the counter and folded my arms over my chest, bracing myself for the impact.

“I know how you feel about him,” he began after taking another breath. “And I know that you don’t think that it’s going to be anything more than that... just feelings. But I’m not sure how I should feel about you being alone together on a regular basis.”

My arms dropped out of their defensive position. “Is it because he’s a guy?”

“No, Eren. It’s because he’s an adult,” he explained, lines of concern etching into his face as he spoke. “If what you have now turns into something more later on, there’s no telling how it would work out. He might want different things. He might try to push you into things you’re not ready for. It’s not because you’re in love with another man, it’s...” He trailed off, as if only realizing what he said after he had already said it. “You do love him, don’t you?”

I couldn’t hold up anymore. My throat tightened against my will, and hot, acidic tears welled up in the corners of my eyes. I tried to respond, but all that came out was a weak, strangled murmur.

“How come it sounds so wrong when you say it?”

“Eren...” my dad tried to begin.

“I... I don’t understand it,” I said convulsively. “I don’t know why this is happening. I hate it, and I want it to stop. But it won’t. I don’t want things to be like this, but I... I just... I love him, and I can’t make myself stop.”

“Eren,” my dad said again, more assertively this time. I stopped my lovesick rambling and stared up at him, my eyes feeling like they were swimming in lava. He placed his tea down on the counter and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not upset with you because of how you feel. In fact, I’m not really upset at all. It’s probably better this way, and I wouldn’t change it if I could. But there are things that I am concerned about. Do you understand?”

I nodded feebly.

“You need to be careful around him. You can’t let things get out of hand if you’re not ready. And, frankly, I don’t think you are. In the end it’s up to you, but that’s what I think. I just want you to consider it.” He gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I’m only telling you this because I want you to be safe. You know that, right?”

I took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded again. He gave me a tired smile, then stepped toward me and hugged me close. I wound my arms around his waist and rested my head on his shoulder. For a second, I felt like a little kid again, being reassured after waking up from a nightmare, told that I was in the real world again and that everything would be alright. Then he let me go, and we both stepped back to finish off the rest of our tea.

“So what should I tell Levi?” I finally worked up the courage to ask.

“If you want him to come over, go ahead and say yes,” my dad replied. “Just be aware of what your situation is. Don’t do anything without thinking it through first.”

I couldn’t help the smile that broke out on my face. “Thank you so much, Dad,” I said. I stuck my mug into the dishwasher, hugged him one last time and started for the stairs. “I’ll answer him tomorrow. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Eren,” he replied. “I am going to be home on Saturday, though,” he called after me. “Just keep that in mind.”

 _I will_ , I thought as I went back upstairs and closed myself into my room again. My phone was still lying on my bed where I had left it. I had an answer for Levi now, even though he might not be awake to read it.

**Me: he just got home. He said it’s fine.**

I shut my bedside lamp off and curled up under the covers. As I was drifting off, my phone vibrated. I automatically unlocked the screen and checked my inbox. By some miracle, Levi was still awake, and he had seen my text.

**Levi: Cool. See you saturday. Okay?**

**Me: Okay.**

 

* * *

That was Thursday. Friday was the same, minus the conversation with Levi. By the time I woke up on Saturday, it was almost noon and I could smell something wafting up the stairs from the kitchen. I dragged myself out of bed, threw some clothes on and followed the trail of scent.

When I walked into the kitchen, the stove was on, Mikasa and my dad were sitting at the table and the counters were a mess of ingredients. It happened that Mikasa had taken full advantage of the fact that our Dad was home for the day and she had looked up some fancy toasted sandwich recipe online. I joined in, we made a huge mess and the rest of the day went by in a pretty similar way.

On some off chance, Mikasa didn’t have an MMA practice scheduled for that day, meaning we would be stuck together for a while. She did have a party that night, though, so it wouldn’t last too long. We wasted another hour at home before my dad looked in the fridge and realized we had used the last of the decent cooking ingredients in the house during lunch. We were back home after a trip to ShopRite that took about twice as long as it should have. My sister went to her room to get ready for her party, my dad went to his laptop to check some emails, and I waited.

Levi had said he would be able to get out of work at about four or five. It was a twenty-minute drive from Trost Regional Hospital to my house, fifteen if he sped, which he usually did. He usually went for the exact medium of expectations, so I figured he would get out at around four thirty. Then it would be another twenty minutes, and he would get to my house at four fifty.

I glanced at my clock. It was almost four. I still had about an hour to kill, so I went to my laptop to keep me busy. I wouldn’t have enough time to watch a full episode of any of my usual shows on Netflix, so I settled for Tumblr instead, but my eyes couldn’t focus on the screen while I scrolled. My head was somewhere else entirely.

The minutes ticked past, and I waited anxiously to hear his Soul pull into the driveway. Four thirty. Four forty-five. Four-fifty. Then five, and still there was nothing. The time dragged on, further and further past when I had predicted he would arrive. I kept scrolling, hoping that soon enough I would feel the vibrations from the driveway seeping into the house. The time only kept on passing. So much of it passed that I gave up on Tumblr and went to Netflix instead, then my dad leaned into my room to ask me what I wanted for dinner. I told him Chinese takeout would be fine, since he had made lunch, then looked at the clock again. Six thirty-seven. I sighed and melted into the mattress. He wasn’t coming.

My dad left with Mikasa not much later, and my dad came back carrying an oversized paper bag. I was at the top of the stairs, my phone clutched in one hand. He looked up at me and asked, “He’s still not here?”

I shook my head. “No. Not yet.”

My dad didn’t say anything in return. We set up the table for dinner, dug what we wanted out of the takeout boxes and ate in a mostly-comfortable silence. There wasn’t much to talk about, since we had been together all day.

Halfway through, someone knocked on the door.

My dad and I looked at each other across the table, then I gave in and got up to open the door. Levi was standing outside, his cheeks and nose flushed from the cold.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” I replied nervously.

He peered around me and looked into the kitchen, the same place that we’d tried to have a discussion that had turned into an argument nearly a month earlier. My dad was still at his place, keeping a watchful eye on the front door. “Am I interrupting anything?” Levi asked.

“Well, we were eating dinner, but we were almost done. It’s really not a big deal.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I could wait or...”

“No, it’s fine. Really,” I cut him off and shut the door behind him. I had no idea what he meant by _wait_ , since there was really nothing for him to do. What would he do, stand outside until I came out and told him he could come in?

“Oh,” he murmured, shrugging off his jacket. “If that’s the case, would you mind if I joined you guys? I haven’t even seen food since my lunch break.” He took notice of my dad and added, “I won’t eat much. I promise.”

“It’s fine,” my dad said, even though neither of us had been talking to him. “We’ve got enough to go around.”

“Thank you so much, Dr. Jaeger,” Levi responded. I started back toward the kitchen and he followed behind me. I took out a plate and silverware for him, then took my seat back. He settled down next to me, then glanced frantically back and forth between me and my dad. I couldn’t believe it. Levi was actually capable of being nervous.

“You’re a little late,” my dad said casually. “What kept you so long?”

“I got held up with an emergency admission towards the end of my shift,” Levi answered. “A girl came into the emergency room because a kneecap tumor had become inflamed and she needed to be admitted for surgery a few days early. Dr. Erwin’s staff had to be on hand for a few extra hours so she could be settled in.”

“Oh,” I said. “You could have just told me.” I noticed his plate was still empty and offered him the box of fried rice. Shy Levi was, admittedly, kind of cute, but his hesitation was making things a little uncomfortable.

“I would have, but I was being kept pretty busy. By the time I was let out, I was already late, so I just jumped into the car and drove here.”

“Do they do this to you a lot?” my dad asked.

“Sometimes.” Levi neatly scraped out the rest of the rice and carefully picked up another container. “They pay me for the extra hours, though.” _Because god knows you need the money_ , I finished in my head.

Dinner, in a word, was awkward. It already was a little bit that way when my dad and I were alone. Levi’s presence amplified it to about twelve times what it was before. He was tense the entire time, doing his best to make small talk, even though he obviously didn’t have much practice. He ate fast, and surprisingly neatly for his speed, and once he’d cleared off his first plate he didn’t take another.

My dad left eventually, mentioning something about a conference call with the staff from another branch of the laboratory before disappearing up the stairs. Once he was gone, Levi almost visibly melted with relief.

“You don’t need to be terrified of my dad, you know,” I said.

Levi’s eyebrows pinched together in a slight frown. “I’m not terrified of him. I’m just trying to make a good impression.”

“Well, he knows you’re polite, I guess.” He totally wasn’t, but it wouldn’t have done well for my dad to know that from the get-go.

Levi sighed and emptied out another takeout box onto his plate. “It’s not him. I’m just not good at meeting new people.”

I smiled. “Neither am I.”

He finished off the rest of the takeout (after seven hours without food, apparently) and we went down to the basement to go through the same ritual that we had performed for our first one-on-one. I laid down on the couch, he pulled a beanbag chair up next to me, and we started talking.

There was, obviously, one place that he intended to start.

“How do you feel about what’s happening to Reiner?”

“It sucks,” I replied. “It doesn’t feel right. I feel like the world is kicking him while he’s already down. In fact, I feel like he’s been kicked and downed and kicked again multiple times in a row. First he has cancer, then his boyfriend dies, now it’s this shit. And I don’t understand how this could have happened. He was doing so well, and apparently he’s seemed perfectly healthy for years, other than his weird molting-lizard back. Armin tried to explain it to me, but it doesn’t make sense, and it seems really fucked up that his cancer took advantage of him while he was depressed. His melanoma reactivated because he was suffering from an emotional loss. How sick is that? Why does biology work that way?”

Levi stared at me for a second, then said, “Well, that went a lot faster than I expected it to.”

“It was just something I’ve been wanting to get out of my system, that’s all.”

“Right. Is there anything else you want to say about him? Things that bother you, or that you’re worried about, maybe?”

“Well, there’s the support group, first of all. He holds it together. All the long-term members do. I know that it would have been his last year even if everything hadn’t gotten complicated, but he was going to become an admin to stay with the group. I can’t help feeling like it’s going to fall apart without him.” I turned to look at the back of his head. “That’s not to say it will. Or that he’s actually going to die.”

“It’s an understandable fear. Good job keeping things in perspective, though.”

“People have graduated from the group before, right?”

“Yeah. Quite a few have. Not everyone dies before they leave, brat.”

“Hm,” I murmured, rolling onto my back. “That’s good to know, I guess.”

The basement was quiet for a moment. Levi turned around to face me, maybe because he thought I had fallen asleep. “Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?” he asked.

“Not... really...” I admitted. Heat crept up my neck and into my cheeks.

“Then can I ask you something?”

“It’s what you came here to do, I guess.”

“Why were you at home for the past week?”

The answer was so much easier to give than the last time he had asked me that question. “I had nothing to do. Homeschool took up a bunch of my time, then I tried to see if anyone was available to hang out, but... nothing.”

“No one? Really?”

“I don’t know many people outside the support group. That’s, like...” I took a second to count on my fingers. “...seven people in total.”

“Not including Seabiscuit?"

“Nope.”

Levi sighed and sat back against the couch. “And here I was, thinking something was seriously wrong.”

I sat up and leaned over towards him, and he turned and looked at me again. “Actually, Levi...” I started. Then I stopped. There was something I wanted to say to him. But as soon as I tried, it slipped past me. I caught it again, and realized it would sound insanely stupid.

“Yeah?” he replied expectantly.

I bit my lip and took a breath before starting over. “There was a reason that I texted you. For a while, I’ve been... god, this is going to sound so weird, but... lately, I’ve been getting lonely a lot faster than I used to.”

“Hm.” Levi raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain. But it’s been happening for months now. Like, for instance, I had a sleepover with Armin after the last meeting we had-”

“That’s adorable.”

“Shut up. Anyway, I felt fine for a while after that, but within a few days I started feeling... I don’t know how to put it. Empty. Kind of restless. It’s never to me happened before.”

Levi nodded as I spoke. “So you get bored and lonely without your friends.”

“Yes.”

“I really don’t see anything that’s wrong with that.”

“But it happens so fast,” I protested. “Isn’t that a sign of... I don’t know, separation anxiety or something?”

“Maybe,” Levi answered. “But it doesn’t sound that way, judging by what you’re telling me.”

“Are you sure?”

As if cued by those words, Levi kneeled on the beanbag chair and leaned in towards me. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Eren.”

My heart spazzed out. “Which is?”

“That’s what it feels like when you have friends.”

Well, if that wasn’t anticlimactic, I didn’t know what was. “What?”

“When there are people in your life that you care about, you want to be with them,” he explained matter-of-factly. “And sometimes, if you’ve been a certain way for long enough, it can change you. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing. And you know what, brat?”

“What?”

“The same thing happened to me.”

Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “And that’s just how it works. Even if you’re not a person who likes being social, there are always a few people who are exceptions.”

“So, like... Hanji?” I mused.

“No,” Levi said flatly. “Not Hanji. I put up with her on a regular basis, but she’s not my exception.”

“Then who is?”

Levi paused, and his expression wavered for a second. “There have been a few people,” he said. “I met a bunch of exceptions when I was a kid. I don’t even talk to most of them anymore. Erwin was one, I suppose. Then there was you.”

My heart stopped. He couldn’t be serious.

“Me?” I asked.

“You got me Christmas and birthday presents. Why wouldn’t you be one?”

I stared at him in disbelief, trying to find something to say but incapable of using my words. He was serious. I was an exception. I meant something more to him than other people did. He might as well have proposed to me, because coming from him that was basically what it felt like.

“I... I don’t know what to say,” I stammered.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Levi responded. “It’s just a statement of fact.”

“But I... I’m an exception to you?”

“Do you want me to rescind that statement?”

“Wha- no. No.” I laid back down on the couch. “I just... I want to say _something_.”

“Then we can talk about something else, if you want.”

And that was exactly what we did. For the next six hours.

We threw the conversation around carelessly, not really trying to accomplish anything anymore. He had come over to solve whatever problem I was having, but it turned out there was no problem to solve. I was surprised that he hadn’t left as soon as he found out there was nothing for him to do. But he didn’t. He just sat in my basement and talked to me until both of us had lost track of time. We would hear movement above us every now and again. My dad checked in on us at one point before leaving and coming back a few minutes later with Mikasa in tow. I came upstairs for a while to say goodnight to her, then went back to the basement and to Levi.

Once I thought I saw someone leaning against the doorjamb at the top of the basement stairs. But when I looked, they quickly disappeared. Levi had noticed it too.

“I think we’re being shadowed,” he said.

“It’s probably just my dad,” I explained with a shrug.

“Wow. Does he really trust me so little?”

“I don’t know. I’m not him.”

“You could ask.”

“Obviously he thinks you’re secretly a forty-year-old pedophile.” I laughed a little, even though it didn’t quite fit the situation. It actually wasn’t far from the truth.

“Hmph. Irrational, maybe, but I can’t really say I blame him.”

And we kept talking.

It didn’t stop until Levi looked at the clock and said, “Holy shit, is that seriously what time it is?”

I turned to look at this digital reading on the DVD player. It was almost half an hour after midnight.

“How the hell were we down here for that long?” I asked no one in particular. I sat straight up and staggered to my feet as if I had somewhere to go. “I’m surprised my dad didn’t say anything.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t kick me out,” Levi said.

I looked up at the doorway to the kitchen. The light outside had been turned off, and probably had been that way for a while. “How did we even stay up this late?” I wondered out loud.

“I should probably get home,” he quietly pointed out. “I’ve probably overstayed my welcome at this point.” Even as he said the words, I saw that he was wilting a little in the beanbag chair where he was sitting. He staggered to his feet, but I stopped him before he could start towards the front door.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked.

Levi cocked his head and looked quizzically at me. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You seem really tired. I don’t know how safe it would be for you to drive home.” I sounded a little more worried than I was used to hearing, but I didn’t care. “I wouldn’t want you to fall asleep at the wheel.”

“I guess...” Levi murmured. He glanced up at the darkened doorway, then back at me. “Do you think your dad’s going to be okay with this?”

My dad definitely wouldn’t be, but that didn’t mean I was going to let Levi get into an accident. “He already knows you’re here.”

It only took that much to get Levi to surrender. “Okay. Just a few hours, I guess.”

I ventured upstairs first to my room to change into pajamas, then to the linen closet in the bathroom to grab a spare set of sheets and took a few pillows from my bed to bring downstairs. There were some throw blankets stacked up in the corner of the living room, and a few more in the basement. We pulled all of the beanbags together into a big squishy pile, then threw the pillows and blankets on top.

Once it was all completed, I turned to Levi. “Do you want the beanbags or the couch?”

“What?”

“Which one do you want to sleep on? The beanbags or the couch?” I asked, rephrasing the question.

“I thought we were just setting up _one_ place to sleep.”

“Well, I don’t want to leave you alone in here.” I stopped myself right there. It had taken about a second for me to realize exactly how creepy I sounded.

“I thought I was just going to crash here for a few hours and leave as soon as I wake up. I didn’t mean to turn this into a full-blown sleepover.”

I wasn’t sure whether I should have been insulted by that or not. “That’s not what I meant either.”

“Then why do you want to share the basement with me?”

I sighed and dropped my gaze to the floor. “I don’t want you to be alone if my dad wakes up and finds you here. Does there have to be another reason?”

Levi stared at me for a while, a look in his eyes that I couldn’t quite identify. “I guess not,” he said quietly. “Just one thing, though. Do you have a toothbrush I can borrow? Because if I have to spend all night with rotting bacteria in my mouth I won’t be able to sleep.”

I told him that, obviously, we had an entire package up in the bathroom. We brushed our teeth together, and I let him borrow a shirt and sweatpants to use as pajamas. When he walked out of the bathroom after changing, I almost burst out laughing. My clothes hung off of his small frame like laundry on a clothesline. The short sleeves went almost to his elbows, the shirt’s hem fell past his hips, and my sweatpants were crumpled into folds around his ankles. He looked ridiculous. And, as painful as it was to admit... cute.

“You’re adorable,” I told him, grinning like an idiot.

“Shut the fuck up,” he promptly replied.

We didn’t talk much for the rest of the night. When we went back to the basement, we decided that he could take the couch, since I had been on it all night, and I would sleep on the beanbag-bed. He rolled himself up in the mess of blankets I had given him, and I got a glimpse of him, curled up in a bundle of blankets with his eyes closed and his hair in a messy raven halo on the pillow, before I turned out the light and stumbled my way back to the beanbags. I fell asleep to the sound of his breathing and my pulse rushing in my ears.

 

* * *

 

Levi wasn’t there when I woke up.

I was surprised at first. We had been up late the night before, and he had seemed far too tired to have simply gotten up and walked out after only a few hours of sleep. Then I found the note he had left on the couch cushion, right next to the neatly folded pile of blankets that he had used the night before.

 

_Good morning, brat. It’s 6:30 AM, and as far as I know, I’m the only person in this house who is awake right now. I’m going to leave before I get into any more trouble. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine on my way home. I’ve slept a lot less than this before and had to do things afterwards that were far more difficult than driving a car._

_Thanks so much for letting me stay here. I threw out the toothbrush I used, and I left your clothes in your room in what I think is your hamper. Thanks again for letting me borrow those. I hope you don’t mind, but I took a granola bar from your pantry before I left. I can pay for it if you want me to._

 

_Levi_

  
I smirked a little at the last few lines. _No need for that, Levi_ , I thought.

I glanced at the clock. He’d left the note there more than two hours earlier. My dad had probably left for work already. I had no idea what Mikasa was doing, but I didn’t hear her upstairs. I looked back at the note and felt my face draw itself up into a smile.

He’d made it home safe, I had this note from him, and that was all that mattered. Keeping that thought in mind, I staggered drowsily to my feet, pulled the blankets off of the beanbags and left them in a heap next to the neatly folded stack Levi had left. Once that was finished, I crept upstairs to my bedroom.

The house was quiet, and Mikasa’s door was still closed as I passed. I breathed a sigh of relief as I slipped through my bedroom door. I was safe, at least for now. And so was Levi. I crawled into bed, curled up and closed my eyes again, his note still resting in my hand.

 

* * *

 

Sunday was boring. And then the support group meeting happened, and my day became infinitely better.

My dad was working again, but he came home during his lunch break to pick us up and ferry us to the library. We would be arriving a little early, but sitting around for twenty minutes isn’t that big challenge when you’re surrounded by books. Besides that, I had decided to bring my writing notebook with me. It had been a while since I had last touched it, and I figured that it was about time I added to my archives.

While Mikasa conversed casually with the librarians she had worked for over the summer, I sat squirreled away in the reading room, scribbling random thoughts down on the faint blue lines on my notepaper.

_Cancer cells begin like regular human cells, but they aren’t regular._

_Cancer cells are made of the same things as human cells, but there is something wrong with them._

_Cancer cells don’t care for the cells that are like them but aren’t._

_Cancer cells destroy human cells._

_Cancer cells will destroy all the human cells they can for as long as they live._

I thought back to June. Hanji’s assignment had led to that funny little metaphor I came up with. I hadn’t thought much about it before that point, but I had my notebook with me. I figured that I might as well, so I put my pencil to the paper for one more sentence.

_Cancer is a monster._

As soon as I finished, enthusiastic chatter sounded from the lobby, quickly followed by a harsh “Excuse me!” from the librarian at the front desk. There were few people that I knew who had the audacity to shout in a library, and Hanji Zoe was one of them. I flipped my notebook shut and returned to the lobby. Sure enough, it was her, along with Connie, whose would-be-stoner grin was displayed obnoxiously on his face.

“Eren!” Hanji stage-whispered as soon as she laid eyes on me. I ran to her before she could get into any more trouble and she killed me with a hug, as was our routine for every meeting.

Connie moved to stand behind her so I could see him. “What’s up?”

“Pretty much as close to nothing as I can get,” I choked out.

Hanji let go of me, Mikasa joined us and we got scolded by the librarian one more time before we decided to move our meeting into the reading room where we always sat. People began showing up after that. Sasha was first, with a box of Munchkins stashed under her jacket, then Armin, Jean and Marco.

Levi walked in a few minutes after them, looking disillusioned and a little more tired than he normally did. My mind flitted back to the night before, and something in me wanted desperately to mention it. I didn’t know how good an idea that would be, though. I had to settle for a weak little smile aimed in his direction and hoping he would get the message. His eyes met mine for a second, and his mouth twitched into a smirk. I felt a blush coming on, and I had to bite my lip and look away before my reaction got any worse. His reply still came across to me, though. _Thanks for everything, brat._

At least that was what I thought he meant. I wasn’t sure if Levi shared the same telepathic connection with me that Mikasa and Armin did, but I liked to think he did.

Reiner was the last to arrive, and he had brought Annie with him. Annie was holding his hand when they walked in, even though Reiner seemed no different than he did the last time we had seen him. He still had the same smile, the same optimistic attitude, even the same energy that we all remembered. With the last two members of the YCSG in the room, Hanji finally started the meeting.

It was average, as far as meetings go. People had some problems to discuss, most of them normal cancer stuff. Missing school for doctor appointments was about as bad as it got. Then someone got the bright idea to ask Reiner about how his radiation therapy had been going. His cheerfulness faltered for a split second, and he went on to tell us (as casually as he could) that there hadn’t been very much of a result yet, but he had been holding up so far and he was going to be given a second screening that week, so his prognosis was pretty good. I hoped that he wasn’t just telling us that to make us feel better.

A little bit before the meeting’s scheduled hour was up, Hanji called everyone’s attention to herself.

“I got an idea a little while ago,” she began. “I thought that since a lot has been happening within the group lately, and since it seemed to help move things along at meetings before, I should probably start giving out writing prompts again.” I heard a few unenthused noises from the group, one of them being mine. Hanji barreled straight on through them and kept talking. “I know, I know, we torture you guys so much. But it wasn’t that bad. Besides, I think you guys are going to like this one.”

That meeting’s optional writing assignment happened to be _Would you wish cancer upon anyone? Who? Why?_

After that, the meeting ended, and a grand total of three people actually left. The rest of us stuck around way longer than we were supposed to, like we always did. Armin had invited me, Mikasa and Annie to come over his house after the meeting. Hanji and Levi had to supervise us as long as we were together. And Jean and Marco were just _there_ , getting as much time together as they could.

Annie had gotten pulled aside by Armin and Mikasa, and they had gotten into a heated game of MASH on a piece of printer paper while we waited for Grandpa Arlert to show up. I had passed on participating, so I went back to my old hobby of watching other people talk. The rest of the group seemed to be having a good time on their own.

Then Levi caught my attention and waved me over to the other conversation that was going on in the room. I joined in a little hesitantly, only knowing to start with, “What are you guys talking about?”

“Our schedule for next month,” Hanji answered. “We’re more than halfway through January already, and we haven’t worked anything out yet. I can’t believe everything’s gone by so fast!”

I couldn’t believe it either. In all honesty, I hadn’t even been paying attention. “Oh. Well... I’ve got the same schedule in February as any other month,” I said flatly. “Nothing going on.”

“It’s not a bad thing, really,” Levi pointed out. “At least we know we can fit you in anywhere.”

_I want to fit myself in you, Levi._

I mentally slapped myself for thinking that.

“We should have gone over this while the others were here,” Jean complained while expressly avoiding making eye contact with me.

“Then we can work this out at the next meeting,” Marco said. “It’ll probably be better to have somewhere to write this down, anyway. We’re going to need a calendar to mark this down and-”

And Marco was cut short by a sudden coughing fit.

I started at the noise and felt my eyebrows knit in concern. “Are you okay?” I asked once he was able to breathe normally again.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine. It’s been happening for the past few days. Probably a chest cold or something.”

“Oh. You scared me there for a second.”

I noticed that Jean looked even more worried than I probably felt. “Man, I told you that you should get that checked out.”

“And I told _you_ to stop worrying about it,” Marco said, smiling and nudging his shoulder against Jean’s. “Nothing’s happened yet. If there were something seriously wrong, I would know.”

At that moment, a phone went off somewhere in the room. Then Armin was behind me, grabbing me by the arm. “Eren, my grandpa just got here. We have to get going.”

“Okay,” I said. I turned back to Marco. “I hope you feel better soon.”

He smiled at me. “I probably will. See you.”

I turned to follow the rest of my group out into the lobby. “See you later, brat,” Levi called after me. I glanced over my shoulder, met his eyes just long enough to stick my tongue out at him and kept walking. I was still just close enough to hear the rest.

“Brat?” Marco asked.

“It’s just a stupid nickname. I’ve been calling him that for a while,” was Levi’s reply.

“Well, it’s not inaccurate.” Jean.

“Be nice, Jean.” Marco.

And then another short, raspy cough just as the library door swung shut behind me. I shivered, and not just because the temperature around me had just dropped by about fifty degrees. The last time I had heard coughing like that, it had been mine, and it hadn’t turned out to be _just a chest cold_.

I tried to push the thought out of my mind as I piled into the Arlert Accord with everyone else. I didn’t need to be thinking about this on top of everything else. Marco had said it wasn’t serious. He knew more about his lungs than I did. He’d said that he was fine. That had to mean he was telling the truth.

Right?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse any typos, misformats, continuity errors, or whatever the fuck else I did wrong. I literally edited most of this in a half-asleep stupor.  
> See you next chapter.


	21. More Like Valentine's Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone. According to AO3, it's International Fanworks Day today. Also yesterday was Valentine's Day, and I didn't really give a fuck.  
> So if any of you follow my tumblr (An astounding 86 people. I'm so fucking popular.) you might be able to gather that I'm having some problems. Most of them are health-related, and the feelings from those have kind of managed to wend their way into literally every other fucking aspect of my life. At this point, I'm tired, I'm unmotivated, and I don't really even feel all that much like posting the chapter that I am posting right now.  
> And if you don't follow my tumblr, you should know that this is the last chapter that I've finished writing.  
> No, this is not the last chapter of the story. It's just all that I've written so far. You know all those big-ass hiatuses that I kept throwing your way, where I said I would be catching up and writing more content? Well, I lied. I fucking lied and I didn't write anything. In fact, I haven't written anything new in over a month.  
> So things aren't going well for this story. I've gotten about a tenth of the next chapter written, and the story is only about halfway finished. I am frustrating literally every single one of my readers because my slow build romance is SO SLOW, and it's going even slower because I haven't kept up with my writing.  
> Now you might be wondering (and hopefully you ARE wondering) how you can help. Well, I'm a filthy little attention whore with a self esteem that resides in the tenth sub-basement level of hell. So comment. Post about my story. Make fanart. Make playlists on 8tracks, or wherever else. I don't care. Just let me know that this story isn't getting totally disregarded by the entire internet. I've posted the information you need in literally EVERY OTHER AUTHOR'S NOTE I HAVE EVER WRITTEN.  
> Have fun, fuckers. Now I need to shut my whore mouth and give you what you came here for.  
> Story time.

 

 

Valentine’s Day is a stupid holiday. I’ve always thought so.

Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. I looked forward to it when I was in elementary school. Back then, Valentine’s Day meant that people would be giving out little self-esteem-boosting cards and free candy. I would look forward to _any_ holiday that involves free candy.

The cards and candy don’t last forever, though. Once middle school hits, people stop giving them out. When I reached that point, I kind of stopped caring about it. Then I was diagnosed, and the indifference quickly turned into hatred. I had already come to the conclusion that I needed to keep people out of the figurative blast zone that would be wiped out when the leukemia bomb in my bones went off. I thought that dying people should avoid love at all costs. Then, year after infuriating year, February fourteenth came along to take the whole concept and grind my nose into it.

I had been seeing Valentine’s Day as it truly was for a few years before the one that found me tangled up in the issues of the Youth Cancer Support Group. It was just a stupid corporate construct, popularized to sell cards and candy and send couples into a frenzy as to how they would show their appreciation for their significant others on the worldwide “day of love.” It didn’t mean nearly as much as people thought it did. And for me, it was always just another day sitting inside and refusing to face reality. No love. No romance. No flowers. No chocolate. Not for the dying people.

Yes. Valentine’s Day was a really, _really_ stupid holiday.

It also happened to be two weeks away.

That was the situation that brought Armin to my living room on the afternoon of January thirty-first.

“What did you want me to help you out with, again?” I asked when we had settled down on the couch with our cups of hot chocolate.

“First of all, I want to know what you’re doing on Valentine’s Day,” he replied.

My soul squelched at the question. I don’t think I need to explain why. I just spent five paragraphs doing that. “Why does it matter?” I asked, barely able to keep the disdain out of my words.

Armin fiddled with his mug for a second before confessing, “It’s about Annie.”

I stoically took a sip of hot chocolate. “Didn’t we agree that you weren’t actually sure how you felt about her?”

“No, we agreed that I wasn’t sure it was _love_ ,” he clarified. “There is something. I haven’t figured it out yet, but it’s there. I’m not just going to ignore it.”

“So you’re going to give her a gift for Valentine’s Day?”

“I think you’re taking this a lot more seriously than it actually is.”

“But-”

Armin cut me off. “There are a lot of types of love other than romance, Eren. People get Valentine’s Day presents for their friends, too. In fact, I’m planning on getting you something.”

I perked up at the change of subject. “What are you going to get me?”

“I’m not going to tell you!” Armin said. “That negates the entire point of a gift.”

“Fine,” I mumbled while he sipped from his mug. “But about Annie...”

“I just want to do something nice for her,” he said. “You know how difficult everything’s been for her lately.”

“I know, I know, but Valentine’s Day seems to be stretching it a little.”

“How is Valentine’s Day stretching it?” my friend asked, looking defensively at me. “I care about her a lot, she’s been hurting for a while and I want to make her feel better.” He paused and his fingers tightened on his mug before he added, “Reiner probably would have done something for her. But after he lost Bertolt... and with what’s happening to him now...”

Armin didn’t have to explain any further. We both knew very well what was happening to Reiner.

The last Youth Cancer Support Group meeting had taken place a few days earlier. Marco, whose mysterious cough was still persisting, had offered to host. Reiner had been there, and to say that the five weeks since his melanoma resurgence had changed him would have been a bit of an understatement. He’d started chemotherapy, since the radiation hadn’t been doing enough to eradicate the cells in his lymphatic system. His energy was fading fast, and even though he still smiled at everyone and held his ground as the group’s universal big brother, it was painful for him to do even that much. I had figured it out when he had hugged me I walked in, the same way that he had nearly every other time I had showed up at a meeting. I could breathe easily the entire time.

“Yeah. I wouldn’t want to push him,” I said. Frantic to change the subject, I asked, “But why are you waiting until Valentine’s Day?”

“She isn’t into getting random surprises,” Armin answered. “I need a reason, and Valentine’s Day is a pretty valid one. It’s a day that people do special things for each other anyway. What other excuse would I have to be doing something special for her?”

“Champagne and rose petals are always an option.”

“That wasn’t what I meant by special, Eren.”

I stifled my laugh with the edge of my mug before asking, “Well, what do you think she would like?”

“Hm.” Armin hunched over with his mug between his knees. “I’ve been trying to think it over, but I don’t completely trust my own judgement. I need a second opinion.” He turned to me. “First of all, I don’t want to go nuts with it. I don’t have that much money to spare, and I don’t think she’d be into it. Second, I want to keep any semblance of romance out of it.”

“But this is Valentine’s Day we’re talking about.”

“I know. I already explained why I’m doing this.”

“So... no champagne and rose petals?”

He looked indignant for about two seconds before he laughed. “Seriously, Eren!”

“Okay, okay, sorry. Um... how much money do you have?”

“Not sure. Fifty bucks. Maybe seventy if I’m lucky.”

“You could just get her a gift or something.”

“That’s lame, Eren. I want this to be something she’ll remember, without crossing any lines.”

“Are other people allowed to be involved?” I asked.

Armin paused for a second to think. “Yeah, probably. It’ll keep things from becoming too date-like.”

“We could get the group together, get dinner and go to a movie or something.”

“Dinner and a movie so overused, though. I was really hoping that there would be something more original I could do.”

“Then why are you coming to _me_ about this?” I asked frustratedly. “You probably could have come up with something better on your own.”

“I thought you might have some ideas that I hadn’t thought of yet,” Armin replied, starting to sound desperate. “Maybe something you would like to do for a date, or a nice place you know about that I’ve never been before-”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “What was that last one?”

Armin stopped and stared quizzically at me. “A nice place I’ve never been?”

“Have you ever been to the Rhea Square Mall?”

The room was quiet for a second. “No, I don’t think so,” he said thoughtfully. “Not recently, anyway. I might have, but I don’t remember.” He paused, then brightened up. “Wait. Wasn’t that the place that you went with Levi on Christmas Eve?”

“W-well, yeah, but that’s-”

“What is it like? You think she’d like it there?” Armin said excitedly before his eager face quickly turned into a teasing, elfish smile. “You want us to go to the place where you and Levi had your first date, huh?”

“I-it wasn’t a date!” I said defiantly. My face was starting to burn. “And you said that this wouldn’t be one, either!”

“It won’t be, I just thought it was funny.” We laughed it off, although my blush wouldn’t go away. Armin continued, “So we take the whole support group to Rhea Square Mall for the day.”

“Basically,” I replied. Then another thought came to mind. “Maybe I should ask Levi about it first.”

“Why? It’s not like he owns the place.”

“I know, but he was the one who showed it to me. You said that this was going to be a thing for the whole support group. I don’t know if it’s so special to him that he doesn’t want other people going there, or if it’ll bring back painful memories or anything...”

“Did it last time?” Armin asked gently.

I shrank into the couch at his innocent question. “In a way... yes.”

“Oh. Hm.” Armin tapped his fingers on the side of his mug as he thought, taking a sip every now and again. “We’re going to need a backup plan if he says no.”

“If all else fails, there’s always dinner and a movie.”

Armin sighed in defeat, but still gave me a small smile. “Yeah, there’s always dinner and a movie.”

After a bit more discussion, we decided that if the Rhea Square plan fell through (which I genuinely hoped it wouldn’t) we would meet at the Ermich Mall, get pizza from the food court and go to a movie at the theater in the complex. It would be up to a majority vote which one we would actually be going to see, but that was a decision that could wait. For now, we had a backup plan, and that was the most important base to be covered.

The next step, which I promised to Armin that I would complete after he left, was to ask Levi about it.

I texted him. It took him almost two hours to respond, then the conversation went something like this.

**Me: Hey Levi are you busy on the 14th**

**Levi: No. I dont think so.**

**Levi: You want something from me for v day?**

**Levi: Eren**

**Me: Sry wasn’t paying attention to my phone**

**Me: What took you so long?**

**Levi: I was in class, dumbass**

**Me: Sorry, goddammit**

**Levi: You were asking about the 14**

**Me: Yeah about that**

**Me: The group wants to do something all together and I was thinking we could go to Rhea Square?**

_The group_ was actually just me and Armin so far, but he didn’t need to know that.

**Levi: Sounds nice.**

**Me: So we can go to Rhea Square?**

**Levi: I literally just said**

**Levi: Did you need my permission or something?**

**Me: Sort of. :/**

**Levi: Why? Its not like i own the place**

Now, where had I heard those words before?

**Levi: You want me to come I guess**

**Me: Can you?**

**Levi: Is there a time for it?**

**Levi: NVM, i can always jam the YCSG into my schedule**

**Me: See you there then**

**Me: :)**

I stared angrily at my phone as soon as the last message was sent. A smiley face. I sent Levi a fucking _smiley face_ . _Why the actual fuck did I send him a smiley face?_

He didn’t respond (though if he did, it might have been with a -_-). I locked my phone and resisted the urge to throw it at a wall. It was over, at least. Armin, Annie and I, along with whoever else, would have a place to go on February fourteenth.

 

* * *

 

I don’t know whose bright idea it was to make February two to three days shorter than every other month in existence. It only made the month feel more stressful to me. Time feels like it passes more quickly than it should, leaving you with forty-eight fewer hours that should have been yours.

Before I knew it, it was February tenth, and the remains of the Youth Cancer Support Group was going to be dropping by my house for Mikasa’s seventeenth birthday party.

It wasn’t going to be anything huge. Our family didn’t do huge parties. It was a hereditary trait, passed on even to adopted children. Mikasa Ackerman was not Jean Kirschtein, and we didn’t have the space (or money) to pull that sort of monstrosity off.

All we had planned was a ton of food, a copy of Mario Party 10, and the entire Resident Evil series on hand if the group got bored of beating the shit out of each other on a screen. The rest would be left up to chance. Girls were allowed to sleep over, if they wanted. Armin was allowed to sleep over, if he wanted, as long as we slept in separate rooms. All other male-gendered guests (especially Jean) would get kicked out. And my dad would probably shove Jean out the door by hand if that was what it came to. It was a comforting thought.

Mikasa had made her party strictly invite-only. And for her, invite-only meant members-only. So... no admins were allowed.

So... no Levis were allowed.

Feel free to say _She hates him, Eren, what the hell did you expect?_ at any point.

The party was pretty fun, as far as small gaming/movie/food binge parties went. The group showed up, we ordered enough cheap Chinese takeout to feed a small army, baked two sheet cakes, iced them and poorly decorated them after dinner, then ate both of them while the Mario Party tournament started up. Each one of us had already played a round before anyone remembered the pile of bags and boxes that had been left next to the couch in the upstairs living room.

“Hey, Mikasa, when are you planning on opening your presents?” Armin asked in the middle of a heated contest between Mikasa, Annie and Marco to get enough coins to pass the Thwomp on Yoshi’s island.

“Um... eventually?” my sister equivocally replied. “Dammit!” she added as Annie took her distraction as an opportunity to shove past her and reach Bowser. The blonde smiled and giggled silently, which didn’t creep me out any less than the first time I had seen her do it. That round went to Annie, and we left the game on its menu screen and ran upstairs to the forgotten presents in the living room.

Almost everyone had brought something. The gifts were small, inexpensive things, but Mikasa smiled gleefully at every one of them. Sasha had given her a red knitted hat to match her scarf and a set of cookie cutters. Connie piggybacked on her gift, claiming they had bought it together. Everything Armin gave her was homemade; his gift was a mixtape CD and a black craft store tee shirt covered in quotes from her favorite movies and TV shows written in multicolored fabric paint. Marco hadn’t been sure what she would want, so he and his mom had made her a batch of almond cookies (as if two cakes hadn’t been enough for us). Then Mikasa came across a particularly small bag that had been hidden behind all the others.

“That one’s from me,” Jean was quick to point out. I glared at him, no one else noticed, and Mikasa started to dig around in the tissue paper with her fingertips.

“What is it?” she asked.

Jean smiled a little in response. “Open it and you’ll find out.”

“Fine.” My sister pulled a small folded slip of decorative stationery from the bag. She undid its creases, read the neatly written message inside, looked up at her ex and smirked. “Pervert.”

“What does it say?” I asked, leaning over out of pure impulse. Jean grinned knowingly, Mikasa shoved me away and refolded the paper, and I sat back down, trying not to look like I was seething.

A few more seconds of digging, and Mikasa came across a tiny box. It was white with some brand name printed in unintelligible black scrawl. My sister lifted the lid, took one look at the thing on the pillow of polyester fluff and gasped. “Jean...”

“Do you like it?” he asked, his voice sickeningly sweet.

Mikasa stared a few seconds more at Jean’s gift, then reached into the box to free it from its confines. It was a necklace. Sterling silver, according to the little sticker on the inside of the lid. The small, delicate chain looked faintly like a thorned vine. Little bars of silver were twisted around into a dangling circle at the end, forming a small rose-shaped pendant. A tiny drop of deep red sat at the center.

“It’s a garnet,” Jean explained. “I would have gotten you your birthstone, but I know purple isn't your color, and the pendant with that one looked way too dainty...”

“It’s beautiful,” Mikasa murmured, awestruck. She dropped the necklace back into its box and gazed up at him. “H-how much did you spend on this?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Jean, seriously.”

“I said it doesn’t matter. It’s a gift. It’s yours now.”

Mikasa sighed and gazed fondly down at the box in her hand before gently closing the lid and thanking Jean, who at this point I wanted to set on fire. My sister then gave out a thorough round of hugs and carefully wrapped everything back up in its original package. “So... we still in the mood for Mario Party?”

We were, so it was back to the basement. For most of us, anyway. Marco wasn’t in the basement when I came down, and he didn’t show up for the first few minutes. I had the nagging feeling that I was the only one who noticed, or who didn’t know why he was gone. I wasn’t currently in the game, so I left the basement to see if I could search for him upstairs.

The kitchen was empty, as was the living room. There weren’t many other places he would have gone. I felt like I needed an excuse to be where I was, so I went to the kitchen to get a drink. I opened the fridge and Marco suddenly appeared at the foot of the stairs.

“Hey, Eren. Do you have water bottles in there or anything like that?”

His sudden presence made me jump. “H-huh? Yeah, we do. You want one?”

Marco nodded. “That would be nice.”

He walked over to me, I handed him a water bottle, grabbed a can of Sprite for myself and asked, “Where were you? You kind of disappeared for a few minutes.”

“I was just in the bathroom,” he said. “I asked your dad if he had cough drops or anything on hand, and that was where he told me to look. My throat’s been kind of raw lately.”

A twinge of concern twisted up in my chest. “Still have that chest cold?”

“I guess so,” Marco replied with a weak smile.

“Still? It’s been like, two weeks,” I pointed out, to which Marco’s only reply was a shrug. “Did you at least find the cough drops?” I tried.

“Yeah, I did.” He took a few out of his pocket to show me. _Well, at least there’s_ some _good news in all of this_ , I thought. “I like the brand you guys buy. I didn’t know they made ones with real honey.”

“My dad’s kind of a chemistry nut, and he’s a little suspicious of what they put in the regular ones,” I explained.

Marco laughed a little, and we went back downstairs acting as if nothing had happened. Everyone else acted the same. An hour later, most of us were a little tired of Mario Party, and those who weren’t felt too happily indifferent to protest moving on to something else. We stuck the first _Resident Evil_ into the Xbox and started watching that instead.

My Sprite ran out. People’s food comas were wearing off. The movie ended. It was almost eleven, and whoever wasn’t planning on staying over would be gone within the next few minutes.

Jean was the first to go. As soon as he was out of sight, I caught Mikasa alone. “About that necklace Jean gave you...” I started.

“What about it?” she responded. She sounded suspicious.

“I... I don’t know. It seemed like a bit... much. You know, for a friend’s birthday present.”

Mikasa stared at me in disbelief. “Eren, you do know how rich he is, right?”

“Yes, I do, but-”

“This is probably how he always buys gifts. Spending freely probably isn’t a big deal to him.”

“I know, but... a necklace? He’s buying you jewelry?”

“I’m a girl, if you haven’t noticed,” Mikasa deadpanned. “People generally assume that we like that sort of thing.”

“But... but he’s acting like... like he’s...”

“Like he’s trying to win me back?”

I tried to respond, but that was it. Mikasa had once again hit the nail directly on the head.

My sister caught the deflated look on my face and rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Eren,” she sighed. “We broke up almost three months ago. I’m over him. He knows that. He’s smart enough to know that I’m not interested in getting back together with him.”

“But what if he isn’t?” I desperately asked.

Mikasa didn’t even feel like dignifying me with an answer. She turned away and headed for the stairs, Annie and Sasha in tow, probably to change into pajamas and wash their makeup off and braid each others’ hair and whatever else girls do at sleepovers. Armin followed me up to my room, and we changed as well. Something on my bookshelf caught his interest, and I left him upstairs to look at it while I went back to the kitchen to make a bowl of popcorn (or three). Some time later, Mikasa showed up. I ignored her, but she wouldn’t let me do it for long.

“Are you still stuck on the whole Jean thing?” she asked.

“No,” I deadpanned.

She took a stack of mixing bowls out of a cabinet. “Yes, you are.”

I said nothing while I pressed buttons on the microwave. Then I turned around, and her eyes latched onto mine. “I just don’t understand,” I confessed. “You were able to leave your relationship behind so quickly. Now you can just hang out together and act like everything’s normal. How the hell did you do it?”

She looked at me for a long time, her eyes getting steadily narrower. “You want to know how I got over Jean?”

“No. Sort of, but not really.” The microwave went off, and I took out the inflated popcorn bag and replaced it with another. “I just want to know how you can... I don’t know, put your feelings aside and act normally around each other. Like you’re actually just friends.”

“I was barely even his friend in the first place,” Mikasa said factually. “And being in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship with him wasn’t my idea either, if that helps.”

“It doesn’t,” I tossed back at her. The microwave went off and the second bag of popcorn was finished by the time I decided to speak again. “You did like him back, though. Didn’t you?”

Mikasa stared at the countertop and sighed. “Yeah, for a while. Not anymore, though. And not with the same magnitude that he liked me with.”

The kitchen was quiet for a while longer, save for the microwave humming and the soft _plinkplinkplinkplinkplink_ of popcorn grains falling into bowls. I heard movement in the upstairs hallway, then footsteps pounding down the stairs. The others must have gotten bored and renewed their desire to continue our marathon. Before the others were within earshot, I felt compelled to ask my sister one last thing.

“Hey, Mikasa, what was in that note that Jean wrote to you?”

My sister looked a little surprised for a second. “It was pretty much nothing but a basic happy-birthday message.” Then her face took on a shit-eating smirk. “It started off that way, anyway. Then he wrote, _You never got to deflower me, so here’s something to make up for it._ ”

“Oh.” If Jean hadn’t already left the house, I probably would have beaten the shit out of him right then and there.

 

* * *

 

We lasted until a little after two in the morning. That was when people started passing out in the basement. When three out of five of us had started drifting in and out of consciousness, Mikasa decided that it was probably a good idea to call it a night. She put _Resident Evil: Extinction_ back into its case, and we all went upstairs and disappeared into our respective rooms for the night.

Armin and I opted for sleeping in another puppy pile, tangled with miscellaneous pillows and blankets. The room was dead silent. I was still awake, and didn’t feel like I was going to fall unconscious anytime soon. I figured that Armin was probably asleep, so I tried to act like I was too. I was doing pretty well, too, until I heard Armin quietly ask, “Are you still awake?”

“Yeah,” I said without hesitation. “How could you tell?”

“I couldn’t. That was why I asked.” He squirmed around in the blankets until his eyes found mine in the semi-darkness. “Can’t fall asleep?”

“No. I’m guessing you can’t either.”

“I probably could, if I wanted to. I just don’t feel like it. I was on my phone this whole time.”

“You were?”

“Yeah. My brightness was just really low so it wouldn’t bother you.” He shrugged and added, “I guess that wasn’t really necessary, though.”

“I guess not,” I mumbled.

Armin leaned on his elbow and propped his head up on one hand. “So... why can’t you sleep? Something bothering you?”

“Yeah,” I hesitantly admitted.

“What is it?” A second later, he prompted, “Valentine’s Day?”

“Yeah. Something like that,” I said. “Levi said that we could go to Rhea Square, by the way,” I added. I’d had the answer for days at that point. I couldn’t believe that I had kept forgetting to tell him.

“Oh. That’s fantastic,” Armin replied, smiling. “Everybody agreed that they wanted to go somewhere, but they had no idea where. It’s kind of sudden, at this stage of planning. We’ll have to work out who still wants to go.”

I felt bad about waiting so long to tell him, but I didn’t say anything more. Neither did he, but after a few more seconds of silence, he asked, “That wasn’t everything, was it?”

I hesitated for a bit. “No,” I admitted eventually. “It’s not.”

“Then what is it?”

“You don’t want to hear it.”

“Yes, I do.”

I glared at him. “I’m pretty sure you’re sick of hearing about it.”

“Eren, I’m your best friend,” Armin asserted, his eyebrows coming determinedly together. “If I get sick of anything that has to do with you, then I don’t deserve that title.”

I swallowed convulsively. I knew I could tell him anything. He already knew how I felt. Hell, he probably already knew what I was going to say. “It’s about Levi,” I started, and all the other words came rushing out. “He’s going to be there with us on the whole _not-date_ thing. I know that’s what we’ve said it was, and I know that for all intents and purposes, it’s just the lot of us having an excuse to get together. But I don’t know if it’s going to feel that way. I’ve already jumped to that conclusion about you and Annie. And I’m going to do the same thing about him. I know I will, because I always do, no matter what happens.”

“Whoa. Eren, slow down,” Armin said. I shut my mouth. “Let me get this straight. Even though _you_ were part of the whole planning process for this... not-date thing, and you _know_ that it’s not supposed to be romantic for any of us, you’re still worried that you’re going to start thinking that way?”

My fears sounded so much stupider when he laid them out like that, but they were legitimate. I could have sworn they were. “I always do it. It’s happened before. I just don’t want to do anything stupid.”

Armin was quiet for a second, as if he needed time to think. “If it’s any consolation to you, the rest of the group will be around the whole time. So if you start screwing up, then we’ll be there to stop you,” he reassured me. He sounded so confident. I almost smiled.

Then he added, “And even if you do screw up, then there probably isn’t a better day for you to do it.”

After he said that, I really didn’t feel much like sleeping.

 

* * *

 

Four days later, I was on my way to Rhea Square Mall. I wasn’t in the car that had first brought me there, and I was with the two most polar opposites from the person who had taken me there on Christmas Eve. I would have been excited, but this just didn’t feel the same.

“Hey, Eren. You okay?”

I lifted my head from the window I was leaning against and staring aimlessly through. It was Armin who had asked the question. He was sitting next to me in the backseat of my dad’s Highlander. My dad rode shotgun while Mikasa drove. She was freshly qualified with a probational license. My dad had said that morning that she needed practice, and she hadn’t protested. We hadn’t told Armin’s grandpa that that was the plan, but if he knew about the skill Mikasa had already gained, it probably wouldn’t have even been an issue.

“Hnn?” I mumbled numbly.

“Just asking if you’re okay,” Armin explained. “You seem a little out-of-it.”

“I’m fine,” I said quickly. “Just thinking about some things.”

“Like what?” my dad asked. He turned around to look into the backseat. From the look on his face, I could already tell what he was thinking.

“I don’t know. It’s a lot.” I pressed a palm into my forehead and pulled on my bangs. “Can’t really talk in specifics right now.”

“Well, we’re almost there, and you won’t have to think about anything once we’re all together,” Armin reassured me. I couldn’t take him seriously. I slumped back against the window and sighed.

There wasn’t any real reason why I should have felt so much foreboding. I knew that much, but still it didn’t seem that way inside my head.

We reached Rhea Square a few minutes later. Mikasa pulled over to give my dad the driver’s seat, and everyone climbed out who was staying out. We were about to leave when my dad suddenly caught my attention. “Eren, can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure,” I said easily. I turned to Armin and Mikasa. “You guys go on ahead. I’ll find you.” I went back to my dad. The instant I got close, I saw faint lines of concern etching themselves into his face.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Eren?” he asked.

“What would I not be alright about?” I replied, but he didn’t even need to give me an answer. We both knew exactly which elephant in the room was going unaddressed, and I could tell that he wasn’t trying nearly as hard as I was to ignore its presence.

“Listen, Dad, it’s not that bad. I’ll probably be fine once I’m with everyone else.”

“I know you will. You’ll act like it, anyway. You’re good at that sort of thing.” He seemed desensitized to me, and I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed. “Listen, Eren... do you still... feel the same way about him that you told me you did?”

“I...” _I do_ , I wanted to gush to him. _Holy shit, I fucking do so badly._ “I try not to think about it.”

“Right. I thought that was what you would say.” My dad sighed and looked earnestly at me. “Eren, I know that this is how you deal with things,” he said, “but I really don’t think you’re going to get anywhere if you keep bottling yourself up like this.”

“Who said I wanted to get anywhere?” I countered defensively. “I’ve already explained this to you, Dad. I don’t want a relationship with him. I don’t want this to turn into some huge drama-laden mess-”

“So you would rather let your feelings ferment and keep hurting you?”

His words rendered me speechless in a second, and he continued. “Eren, I’m not telling you to act on your feelings. That is the opposite of what I’m trying to tell you. But I don’t want you to just keep doing nothing.”

“Then what _do_ you want me to do?”

“I want you to tell Levi the truth.”

My dad might as well have told me to lay down in front of the tires and let him drive over me. “What?”

“I know I can’t make you do anything, but that isn’t going to stop me giving you advice. And I want you to tell Levi how you feel about him.”

“Why do you want me to do that? What if something happens? Doesn’t that seem kind of counterproductive?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. The outcome isn’t within your control or mine. But you talking this over with him and him reacting poorly is better than you hurting yourself for the rest of your life,” he said, completely failing to reassure me. “Just tell him. If he doesn’t reciprocate-”

“He doesn’t.”

“ _If he doesn’t reciprocate_ , then you can sort things out from there. And if he does...” My dad shrugged. “Well, I’m sure we can figure something out.”

I sighed and looked down at my shoes. Heat flooded into my cheeks. “I-I should probably go catch up with everyone else.”

When I looked up again, my dad was smiling. “Have fun, Eren.”

I turned on my toes and left it at that. I couldn’t stand the thought of dragging that awkward conversation out any further.

I found Mikasa and Armin quickly enough. We had agreed to meet at the fountain at the strip mall’s center, along with the rest of whoever happened to show up. That just so happened to be the entirety of the Youth Cancer Support Group.

Even Reiner.

I hadn’t been expecting to see him there. It felt strange and a little unfitting, as if he were some kind of hallucination sitting there beside Annie on the edge of the icy, turned-off fountain. He could have been one, for all the similarity between the Reiner I remembered and what he had turned into now. Weight loss was a light way of putting what he had been through. Looking at him gave me the same feeling as getting speared with an icicle. I ignored it, though, and made my way towards him before anyone else.

“Happy Valentine’s, Reiner,” I said cheerfully.

He looked from Annie to me and a warm smile spread across his face. “Hey, Eren. Happy Valentine’s Day,” he replied.

His voice sounded worn, as if he had jogged the entire length of the strip mall to reach us. I shook off the sickening feeling it gave me. “How have you been holding up?”

“As well as I can. You know how it is.” He shrugged, still smiling weakly. “What about you?”

I didn’t know why it should matter how I was doing. He was worse off than I was. He was sicker, his cancer digging its roots deeper, as his condition made painfully obvious. So I responded with the same answer that I always gave.

“I’ve been okay.”

“Eren is okay,” Levi said. “How shocking.”  
The words sent a shiver down my spine, one that had nothing to do with the cold February air. I spun around, and Levi was standing behind me, an insignificant three feet away. “L-Levi! Hi.”

“Hi,” he said, his voice deadpan, but the faintest smile turning the corners of his lips.

“You... you actually came,” I said needlessly, and in a second realized how I sounded. “I guess this means you weren’t busy today.”

“I probably could have been, but you guys kept me from it.” He stepped toward me and draped an arm over my shoulders. I felt him pull me close and press me against his chest, but only briefly before letting go again. I wasn’t even able to return the hug in time. “Come on. According to you, I’m the goddamn prime minister of this place. You wouldn’t have gone unless I told you that I was okay with it.”

“I-I totally would have!” I contested without thinking. “I mean... I know that this place... and you... I-I can make my own planning decisions.”

Levi laughed quietly and his smile lifted a little more. “It’s okay. I know what you meant.”

By then I had caught the attention of the rest of the group. I still stuck close to Levi as the others gravitated toward me one at a time, though I had no obvious reason to. It wasn’t like he was going to leave anytime soon. I just wanted him near me. I found Mikasa in the crowd and caught her watching me intently, her eyes following my every move.

The group started migrating once we were all together. First it was through a bunch of chain stores, then a few single-locations that seemed interesting. Some people brought more money than others, and Jean was asked to spot someone more than once. Hours later we stopped in a small bakery to get snacks and stop moving for a while, a welcome relief to a significant fraction of the YCSG.

After that, the group started to split up a little. That was mostly because some people wanted to try clothes on, and let’s face it. A group this big gathering around a bunch of fitting rooms would be kind of awkward. Sasha, Mikasa and Hanji wandered off to some lingerie store or another. Connie wanted to take Jean and Marco off someplace that he found interesting. Reiner wasn’t quite ready to move on yet, Armin and Annie offered to stay with him. I was pretty content to stay where I was, too.

At least, until Levi covertly nudged my ankle with the toe of his sneaker and murmured, “Can I talk to you? Outside?” in my direction.

I looked at him and nodded as subtly as I could. I then crafted some bullshit excuse about needing to find Mikasa or something, and the others took to it well enough. I then quietly stood up and started toward the door. Levi appeared at my side as soon as I was out in the cold again.

“What is it?” I asked tentatively. His _Can I talk to you?_ still echoed in my head. He had sounded almost concerned when he said it. I was probably reading into the question so much more than was necessary, but whatever. Lovesick brains never think straight.

“It’s about today,” he said flatly. He started in the direction we had seen the girls go, moving at a brisk pace I struggled to keep up with. “It’s about _this place_.”

“Is something wrong? Did you not want to come?”

“No. I wanted to. It’s great, and everyone seems to be having fun, but...” He turned around and I came to a dead stop. “Eren, why did you think you had to ask for my permission?”

“Because...” I started, but my nerves choked my sentence before it came out. Of course, I could tell him why. He might take it the wrong way. Or the right way when I wasn’t ready for it. At that moment, I sincerely wished that my dad hadn’t given me that advice when he had dropped me off. “Because bringing the group here was my idea.”

“It was?”

“Yes, it was. Armin and I were the ones who wanted to plan the whole Valentine’s Day get-together thing. It was just the two of us on board with it at first, and we kind of got the others in on it later... but I was the one who recommended Rhea Square, and I don’t even know why it came to mind in the first place. And I know how much this place means to you, Levi. I didn’t want to go dragging the entire support group here if they would be... I don’t know, violating the sanctity of your nostalgia or something.”

“What?”

I was about to apologize, but the look on Levi’s face stopped me. “I know. It sounds really stupid, doesn’t it?” I said shamefully.

Levi crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me for a long time. “Yeah. It really does.”

“So... should I apologize, or-”

“No. I can’t be mad at you for being considerate.” He let out a small laugh. “Even if it is consideration about something really dumb.”

“I’m just doing my best,” I said, smiling weakly. We started walking again. “I guess I just overthought everything you told me. I tend to do that a lot.”

“Eren, why do you think I brought you here in the first place?”

I glanced over at him, my eyes wide. “I-I don’t know. Whatever I think is probably wrong anyway.”

“I told you that I hate coming here _alone_ . Not that I hate coming here in general. Rhea Square is kind of like a happy place for me.” He paused and met my eyes with his own. “It’s only happy when I have someone to share it with, though. Like I used to.”

My heart had a small seizure, and I turned my gaze to the pavement again. Warmth was crawling steadily up from my core, up the back of my neck to pool in my cheeks and ears. My hands were trembling. I shoved them into my pockets. Levi wandered ahead of me, only a little, just so my eyes were able to fix on him without compelling him to look back at me. Dad’s advice replayed in my head, and I wished that I had just run off with Armin and Mikasa instead of standing around to listen to him. But I had stayed, and now there was something new to add to the soup of emotions in me that was threatening to boil over. Something pushing me to open my mouth. Then, without thinking, I had started talking.

“Hey, Levi, I...”

Immediately, he had turned around and captured my gaze with his steely blue eyes. “What is it?”

Self-awareness hit me like a truck, and I choked back the rest of whatever it was that I was going to say. I couldn’t do it. Not now. Not yet. Not ever. “U-um... nothing. Never mind.”

Levi sighed. “Please. Not this shit again.”

“Really, Levi. It’s not important.”

“If it isn’t, then why can’t you tell me what it is?”

The question stung, but not as much as telling him the truth would. “I... I just can’t.”

“Is it about your cancer?”

I took a breath to steady myself. “Sort of.” _Well, it’s not a_ total _lie._

“Does Reiner have anything to do with it?”

“Not really.”

“Is it the same thing as what was eating you in September?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

“I already said I can’t tell you.”

We had stopped walking again. We stood off to the side of the main drag, close to a brick wall of one of the buildings, but not close enough to block the wind that was steadily chilling us both. Levi was standing in front of me, his hands in his pockets, looking at me on his slight upward angle, his eyes sharp and perceptive, holding mine captive like teal fish on blue and grey hooks.

“Why is it that the more something upsets you, the less you want to talk about it?” he asked.

The calm, icy tone of his words made me shiver, even more than the environment around us that was still coated with snow. There it was. Levi had laid it bare, plain and simple, for both of us to see. He had gone and ripped off the congealed, musty band-aid that I had hoped no one would ever find.

“Maybe it’s because I like running from my problems instead of accepting that I have them,” I murmured in response. I sounded so small, so ashamed of the truth in my own words. Levi had heard it regardless.

“Then stop running,” he said. “Aren’t you worried that eventually your problems are going to fuck you over?”

“If you’d had the choice, wouldn’t you have done the same thing?”

Levi fell silent, then his gaze slid from mine and hit the ground. My heart sank as soon as the words were out of my mouth. It was a stupid thing to do, dragging his past into all of this. But we both knew that it was true. When his father had died, pushing his problems away and pretending wasn’t an option. For him, it was either face reality or lose everything.

And there it was again. The nagging feeling that all of this was trivial. Pointless. Feelings wouldn’t kill me or cure me. Eventually, none of it would matter anymore.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I-I shouldn’t have said-”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m fine,” Levi replied, bringing his eyes back up to mine. “Listen, brat. I know that whatever is hurting you might seem totally insurmountable, but it won’t always be like that. Maybe you don’t want to talk about it now. That’s fine. You’ll come around eventually. People always do.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. I simply nodded, my breath stuck in my throat.

“Just promise that you’ll tell me when you’re ready. I’ll be listening. I always will be.” I felt a soft, fleeting warmth on my skin. Levi’s hand, resting on my arm. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

I had to choke the word out past the anxious tightness in my throat. Levi’s eyes brightened with understanding, and he murmured a soft “Come here” as he gently slid his arms around me, one at my waist, one at my shoulder. I reacted fast, banding my arms around him and letting my head loll down onto his shoulder. I exhaled into the nylon of his jacket and closed my eyes. I wanted to melt against him, letting him hold my shape until I felt stable enough to stand on my own again. All I wanted was to hold him close like this, for hours on end until my arms lost circulation. Then Levi shifted his position, cradled my head in one hand and pressed a kiss into my hair.

My eyes flew open. At first, I wasn’t sure if I had felt it or not. It had been so fast. One second his lips were there, and the next they were gone. Something had happened. I was sure of that much. But what?

Before I could figure it out, Levi was pulling away from me, and I had no choice but to let him go. Our personal spaces were restored, and the cold air returned where Levi’s body had been only a second earlier. The feeling made my chest ache.

“We should really find somewhere to go,” Levi said. “It’s way too cold to just stand out here.”

I agreed, fully aware that I was starting to shiver. I was freezing, and we weren’t even sure that the girls would still be at the place they told us they were headed when they left. We started walking, and it was all I could do not to reach for his hand like I had the last time I was here.

 

* * *

 

I didn’t mention what happened that day to anyone. Not even to the people who already knew what kind of lovesick bullshit ran through my head on a daily basis. I might have told Armin, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to risk him giving me the same advice that my dad had. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell my dad that a _twenty-one-year-old man_ had kissed me.

If I could even call what he left on my scalp a kiss. In all honesty, I had no idea what it was. I was only certain of one thing.

Valentine’s Day had fucked me up.

I didn’t see Levi, or Armin, or any of the others in the Youth Cancer Support Group for a few redeeming days after the fourteenth. And I was happy about it. I didn’t think I would be able to face any of them for a while. But it was only a while, and I knew that I would start feeling lonely again before long. That new facet of my personality didn’t bother me nearly as much as it used to. I brought it up with my dad once, and he told me that it was a normal feeling to have when you have people to miss.

Having people to miss. That’s got to be one of the worst things a person with cancer can do.

The next meeting of the YCSG was one that Jean offered to host. There was a stretch of days in the middle of February in which both his parents would be away on business, and with Nicole still safely kept separate in the dorms at Sina, we could drag the meeting out for as long as we liked.

Mikasa drove us to Trost while my dad instructed her from the passenger seat. I sat in the back in my semi-vegetative car ride state and stared mindlessly out the window until we arrived. As we left, my dad said something about me driving us back. But I had learned my lesson about listening to the things he said to me through a car window, so I forgot it as soon as he pulled out of Jean’s driveway and disappeared.

The entire group had managed to show up that day. With one exception. And yes, it was who you are probably thinking it was.

It wasn’t a surprise to me. The group rarely ever saw Reiner anymore. Only Annie and Armin were able to keep up with his current events anymore. And even they had their limitations. When a person is sick, they can only see their friends so often. Besides, he had looked disturbingly weak when I had last seen him. I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to show up.

The support group gathered in the living room. Bowls of chips and salsa were laid out for us (but mostly for Sasha) and the meeting commenced as usual.

Hanji was the first to speak. “To start things off, I just want to say that I had a great time on Valentine’s Day. I want to thank all of you guys for coming together for a day, especially when so many of the group’s members are going through so much. It’s my personal philosophy that when things get difficult, the greatest help that any of us can ask for is to have people to be there with us, and to know that there are people who love you and care for you. I just wanted to say that I think all of you are so strong and so amazing, and that I love you guys so much. Being with you is my favorite thing, and I just-”

Someone in the room coughed, and Hanji’s words came to a dead stop. “Right. I think I should pass the torch now.”

“I have something I’d like to share,” Armin said shyly, and the entire group turned to look at him. His face flushed a faint shade of pink. “Well, it’s... it’s not really mine to share, but...” He looked at Annie, who sat on the other piece of the huge L-shaped couch in Jean’s living room. She met his eyes and nodded. “Annie wanted to give you guys an update on Reiner, since he didn’t really say much the last time you guys saw him.”

The group was quiet for a second. I could tell Armin was hesitating. He didn’t want to say it outright, but he would have to. Finally, Connie prompted him with a prodding, “What is it?” and he had no choice but to answer.

“He... he’s still pulling through. So far. The treatments he’s been receiving so far haven’t done very much to reduce the cell growth or slow their spread, though. They’re cutting his interval in half, and he’s going to be spending some time in the hospital to see if there’s anything more that his doctor and her staff can do for him. But... but he’s not giving up yet. We can all be sure of that. So... maybe, soon he’ll be...” Armin blinked several times and looked up to face the group. “He’ll be joining us again.”

I didn’t believe Armin’s last sentence for a second. I had seen Reiner on Valentine’s Day. He didn’t look like a man on the edge of recovery.

I wasn’t going to say any of that, no matter how vehemently I thought it. The last thing that the Youth Cancer Support Group needed was another taste of my shitty outlook on life. So the conversation moved on. Jean, Connie and Sasha talked about just barely having survived their midterms, then Sasha mentioned a group of girls in her class that didn’t understand that her weight was caused by a mostly-missing digestive system and constantly asked her for dieting tips. The conversation was interrupted by a sudden, soft cough coming from the corner of the couch where Marco sat.

“Sounds like Marco’s lungs have something to say,” Jean teased, nudging his best friend. Marco coughed again and his cheeks flushed faintly.

“Hey, Marco, how long has that been going on anyway?” Connie asked.

“I don’t know,” Marco choked out before another cough was squeezed out of his lungs. He cleared his throat and started over. “It’s been a few weeks, I think.”

“That sounds a little concerning,” Levi pointed out. I looked over at him. His eyes were laced with concern. “Haven’t you seen a doctor yet?”

“Just my GP. Even he isn’t sure what it is. Some minor respiratory infection is still in the realm of possibility. I don’t get over things very fast.” He coughed one last time, as if to prove a point. “Besides, it’s not like I’m in pain or anything. We’ll go in for another visit if it doesn’t go away.”

With that, the subject was dropped. The support group went back to its usual discussion. The subject never left my head though. Marco’s cough. I couldn’t even remember how long he’d had it. It had started a little after New Year’s, and from then on it had stayed right where it was, lodged in his chest. In fact, if I remembered correctly, it had gotten just slightly worse over the weeks. I knew all too well about how a shitty immune system could prolong illnesses. But whatever he had was beyond the scope of anything I had ever seen. Other than the cold-turned-pneumonia, maybe. But even that hadn’t stayed a low-level cough for over a month.

No one else seemed worried, though. Or at least not that I could see. So I pretended that I didn’t feel it, either, and went on talking with the support group.

One hour spilled over into two, and it had been almost three before someone pointed out what time it was and said that their parents expected them to be home for dinner. Someone else’s mom had become concerned after three hours with no messages and was on her way to retrieve them. Mikasa already had her phone out and was texting Dad. It seemed as good a time as any to end the meeting. But before that, Hanji had one more announcement to make.

“Guys, it’s been a while since the last writing assignment I gave,” she pointed out, and I heard a few groans issue from the group. “Hey. You can’t tell me that you’re not in the mood for some creative writing, can you?”

“Too late, we just did,” I said, and Mikasa elbowed me in the ribs while the rest of the group shared a laugh.

Hanji made a disappointed face and continued. “Well, if any of you care, I’ve decided that this meeting’s question would be about our loved ones, since I forgot to ask it before Valentine’s day. The question is: if you could send a message about your cancer to all of your loved ones, what would it be?”

A few people mumbled in acknowledgement. Then my mind fell to the dark side, as it usually does in these situations. “We aren’t... writing our own eulogies, are we?”

Hanji looked sympathetically at me, like a babysitter looking at a child asking her to check for monsters under the bed. “No, Eren, you’re not writing a eulogy for yourself. Just things you wish you could say that maybe you haven’t. Everyone has them, with or without cancer. Just because you’ve never said something doesn’t mean you’ll never have another chance to say it.”

So it wasn’t supposed to be a eulogy. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t turn into one under my incredibly fucking skillful hands. I sighed and turned toward Armin, if only to get my eyes away from her. He was watching me with a slightly disappointed look on his face. “What?” I asked sharply. “Was it too depressing?”

“I’m not going to say anything,” he replied calmly. Then his phone chimed, and he quickly changed the subject. “My grandpa’s going to be here in about ten minutes. Do you guys need a ride today?”

“No. Our dad will be here at around the same time,” Mikasa replied confidently. I saw that she had her phone in her hand, the screen still unlocked. Hopefully that meant she was telling the truth.

“Armin, I wanted to ask you something,” I said. I glanced around. “Annie isn’t listening, right?”

He looked up as well, and we all saw her sitting by Hanji and Levi as Hell-PN talked avidly about something or other in words that I couldn’t hear.“I don’t think so.”

“Good. Because I wanted to know how the whole Valentine’s Day thing went over for her.”

Armin’s eyes brightened. “It was great. She loved it. I mean, I was a little nervous, since I wasn’t even sure she’d be into going out and running around with the rest of us like she used to, but when Reiner agreed, she did too, right after him, like clockwork...”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Armin’s speech came to a dead stop. The happiness in his eyes darkened into something else, something sad and wistful. I instinctively knew why, even before he opened his mouth again. “You know, I can’t believe he could make it. I didn’t think he would even want to try.”

“I couldn’t either,” I responded, the words sounding empty in the air.

“Annie cares about him so much.”

“She really does. He needs it, especially with all of this after-”

“Yeah, I know. I know what happened. You don’t have to say it.”

I stopped talking and waited for the gloominess to leave Armin’s expression. It was slow going, but it did eventually. Elsewhere in the house, a car was pulling into the driveway and people were starting to leave. I checked my phone, wondering if my dad had contacted me as well as Mikasa. I had nothing new in my inbox. Either Mikasa had lied, or Dad had finally come to the realization that I was unreliable as hell. In just about any situation, I would have preferred the latter.

The support group gradually migrated to the high-ceilinged entryway of Jean’s house. More cars showed up, and people stood around talking, trying to stall for as long as they could. Voices echoed in the cavernous space,

In the midst of all the other noise, there was coughing.

I was by myself while the rest of the group was talking. I didn’t have anyone else to distract me. I looked around the room to see if anyone else had heard it. No one seemed to notice. A moment later, it happened again. The coughing was louder this time, just a little more violent. I saw Armin pause in the middle of his conversation, then Mikasa, then both of them looked toward the open front door. I followed along. _So that was where it was coming from._

The coughing didn’t stop. In a moment, almost everyone had been interrupted by the short, raspy bursts of air being fired from someone’s lungs. More accurately, from _Marco’s_ lungs.

I’m not sure who pointed it out first. Barely anyone had been standing outside. It was only Jean and his best friend, waiting for more cars to appear and more people to see off. Only seconds after Marco had first started coughing, Seabiscuit had moved just a little closer to see what was wrong. Now he was worried. I could hear him talking.

“Marco? Hey, Marco, are you okay?”

Seconds passed. The only answer was more coughing.

“Marco?” Jean was starting to sound frantic. “Hey. Marco. Marco, say something!”

Coughing. Coughing intensified. It wouldn’t stop.

Something like an attempt to speak clawed its way out of Marco’s throat. “I... I can’t...”

Someone heard the commotion and pushed through the people clustered around the front door. It was Hanji, her face drawn with concern. She took one look out onto the front porch and turned pale. “Oh my god.”

I found myself being pushed out the door, surrounded by a jumble of concerned words.

“What’s happening out here?”

“Is everything okay?”

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s happening to Marco?”

Jean’s best friend was standing against the wall. He wasn’t exactly standing, really. It was more leaning, letting the wall hold his weight because his legs barely could. He was shuddering, his body convulsing as one cough after another was reflexively forced from his lungs.

I didn’t even notice Levi at my shoulder until he spoke to me. “What the hell is happening out here?” he demanded, his eyes sharply focused on Marco.

“I-I don’t know,” I replied automatically. “All of a sudden, he just...”

I never finished the sentence. Levi rushed forward to join Hanji, who was trying desperately to get close enough to Marco to help him stay on his feet and examine him. With one nurse on either side, Marco was moved to the edge of the porch and forced to sit down on the edge. He was gasping in between coughs now, his lips starting to turn pale.

“He’s losing oxygen,” Levi said quickly, his voice eerily calm. “Hanji, Jean, one of you. Get your phone.”

“Get my phone?” Jean replied in a panic. “Why? What’s happening to him?”

“Something we won’t be able to stop unless we get help. Now get your phone and call 911.”

Hanji was already on the task, her phone unlocked and clenched in her hand, waiting to be dialed. Still, she couldn’t take her attention off of Marco to do even that much. Neither could the rest of the group, including me. Marco’s fit was getting worse. His body jerked uncontrollably with every convulsive movement of his chest. The hideous noise that broke free from his throat with every pulse of his ribs sounded like he was choking, even drowning.

Marco pressed a hand to his sternum. He was staring straight ahead, eyes wide and glassy. His hand rose up to feel his throat, and one arm wound itself around his spasming torso. All of a sudden, he pitched forward, his head falling between his knees. When he came back up, phlegm and blood were splattered on the pavement.

Everything became a blur after that. Jean was screaming. Hanji was chattering frantically into her phone. Another car had pulled into the driveway, but no one was leaving. The driver had climbed out and rushed to Marco’s side. Julia Bodt. Marco’s own _mom_. Armin had rushed to get closer. I had followed. I saw Marco’s face. He was pale, his lips almost indistinguishable from the rest of his face. There was blood at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were huge. Terrified. He had no idea what was happening.

But at the same time, he knew exactly what was happening.

The ambulance didn’t take long to arrive. Marco was laid out flat on a stretcher, a mask placed over his face. He disappeared into the back. Julia followed, her face stained with tears. Jean agreed to borrow her car and took off after the ambulance when it left the driveway.

After that, it was just us; me, my sister, my best friend, and two nurses. Then, before long, Armin’s grandpa showed up to bring him home, and it was just the four of us. The host had abandoned his own house. His reason was more than valid. I couldn’t blame him. But there we were, sitting on his front step, locked out of the house in mid-February while my dad still refused to show up at a reasonable time.

“What the hell just happened?” I asked after we sat there in total silence for an indeterminate amount of time. No one responded. For a while, I was pretty sure that no one heard.

“It could have been a number of things.” It was Levi. I turned to see him staring at the paved walkway in front of us, an unreadable expression on his face. “It could be an infection, or tissue damage from whatever problem he was already having. Or it could be the result of a new colony settling into his lungs.”

My ex-nurse’s blunt words hit me like a combat boot to the face. “What?” I asked, dumbfounded, as if I hadn’t heard him well enough the first time.

“There could be a satellite colony of cancerous cells in Marco’s lungs,” Levi said, his voice flat. “Let’s face this realistically. At this stage, it’s completely possible. We can’t rule it out.” He lifted his eyes to mine. There was a twinge of something. Worry? Sadness? _Something_ emotional that he would let me see.

“But he...” I started weakly, but my words died on my tongue. I turned to look at the others. Mikasa and Hanji were all staring at the concrete, their faces numb. They all knew he was right. And I knew it too. I was just scared to admit it. I looked back at Levi and felt pain and confusion starting to crumple at the edges of my face. Levi responded again, the icy edges in his eyes softening as our gazes met.

“I don’t want to think about it either, Eren,” he said. “But we have to. At least until the truth comes out.”

No one said anything more after that. I felt weakened by everything I had seen. I leaned over and wilted onto Levi’s shoulder. He didn’t pull away, so I stayed there until my dad’s car appeared at the end of Leto Avenue. Then I forced myself to sit up, get back on my feet and walk away from him. He and Hanji would be leaving soon enough anyway.

I didn’t speak much on the car ride home. I didn’t speak much when I got home, either. I could only think, and I could only think about one thing.

Marco.

He had been coughing up blood. What did it mean?

Levi’s words. I hoped that they weren’t true. There weren’t many people that the YCSG could afford to lose, and Marco was definitely not one of them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. Have fun with that atomic bomb drop.  
> You'll hear from me when I finish a few more chapters, whenever the hell that'll be.  
> See you next chapter.


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